Good Idea Friday - Preventing Buttons From Falling Off

Long story short, I have an AMAZING coat I love that my dear husband hunted down from one of my pinterest pins (take note: pinterest is a great way to find the perfect gift for someone! He's always poking around my pinterest boards for gift ideas). But despite how much I love it, I don't love the fact that the freaking metal buttons are always falling off. They cut the string, any string, that I've used to sew them on. To the point that I need to sew them back on at least once a week.

The coat in question - by a company called Just Add Sugar

So I started looking at ways of fixing this problem. I originally thought maybe buying new buttons, but I like the buttons on the coat. So, dental floss? Ehh.. it's white and might be visible from the dark coat and black buttons.

Then I stumbled across this sewing forum post, and gave the hook and eye method a try. Weeks later, the buttons are still on the coat, even after a long camping trip to the Olympic forest that involved a lot of running around and hiking.

What you need is some hook and eye findings, like these:

You just need the "eye" portion, that on the right

This will only work on buttons with shanks, vs buttons with the typical 2 or 4 holes. Loop the eye portion through the shank (I had to use pliers to undo one end, threaded it through, and reclosed it) then simply sew the eye bit onto the coat, not the button.

Ta-da!

Hopefully this helps out anyone else with the problem of buttons popping off. I know there are other solutions out there (sanding the shank down, using waxed thread or dental floss, etc) but this one is so simple and lasting I had to share.

Good Idea Friday - Flat Iron Your Clothes

Flat Ironing Clothes : Clementine Bean 

I saw this trick posted on pinterest this week and knew I had to share it. Over at Clementine Bean, she blogged about her trick of using her flat iron for simple ironing fixes. It's something I've personally been doing for ages on my ribbons or scarfs I use on my hair. If you ever find yourself running late and don't want to break out the iron for a simple fix, say your shirt's cuffs are a bit wonky or the hem is curled up, just use your flat iron. Now make sure that the clothing you're using it on is iron safe, of course; don't try this on polyester or anything prone to melting. Otherwise it works great. I'm actually a bit of an odd ball who doesn't mind ironing clothing, but it does seem a bit excessive or labor intensive if all you need to iron is something small. 

In fact, for those of you who sew, I bet having a cheap flat iron dedicated to pressing seams would be an ingenious item to add to your sewing kit.