I have them in a large ziploc too, in my chest of drawers. Unfortunately I have hundreds of them dating back years, and most likely I have given away those clothes! But I persist in saving them.

One thing: I fold the tag from the garment (that shows the brand, size, etc.) and put it into the tiny plastic bag that holds the buttons. That way, should I ever need it, I could figure out which button matched which garment.

I do exactly that Angie! A tin can with all the buttons in the little ziplock bags they come in.

I also keep a box with multiple threads and needle in the can so I can easily use the extras if needed. No running around the house to find a needle.

I have a drawstring bag hung in my closet. Like Laura, though, I have hundreds of them…I think I should probably stop keeping the generic ones and only keep ones that are very unique. It’s gotten mental at this point.

Good tips! I save them in a drawer for awhile, then they usually end up getting lost. Fortunately, I haven’t needed many, or my mom the seamstress usually has what I need.

I have a little box also – used to be a Turkish Delight tin – and I keep the buttons in the little bag they came in! I like the ones that come in a branded paper packet, so it’s easy to work out what they belong too. But I do forget to update the tin, so there are buttons that belonged to items of clothing I don’t even remember. But buttons are fun, even if they don’t have a home!

Ha! I keep them in an old hinged-lid tin that used to belong to my mother, along with needles, thread and a pair of scissors. I used to throw those little envelopes with the extra buttons (and sometimes spare thread) willy nilly into the tin, but more recently started writing info about the garment on the envelope so that I can match them up when needed. I try to periodically go through them to see if some belong to clothes I no longer have. The kids love to have the extra buttons for crafts.

I have my grandma’s button tin, which is a recycled christmas cookie tin. I love it!

I save small jam jars and store my buttons in them according to colour on a shelf in my sewing cupboard. This has two advantages: (a) it’s quick to find the colour you’re looking for and (b) for the mildly obsessive person, it’s a fun filing exercise. A local providore sells jam in pretty little square jars which are extra-neat to store – not to mention the fun of eating the jam!

I take them out of their little bags and throw them in a canning jar in my closet. I like the way it looks. I’ve never had to use one a spare button – if that ever happened I expect I’d change my ways to the above labeling and ziploc strategy. In the meantime, this is what works for me…

I also keep them in a recycled cookie tin, which is also overflowing. The overflow is in a box with misc grooming items. I label the bags so I know what item they go with. Every few years (usually every time I move) I go through them and weed out the extra buttons for items that I no longer own.

I have a cute, mid-sized box with a sea-through lid that currently houses all my spare buttons. I keep it in a drawer so it’s not in the way but still ready-to-hand when needed. It works well for me!

Haha! It’s funny you say recycled biscuit tin, because that’s exactly what I use…

It’s pretty full right now, and it sits in my bedside table, along with my little sewing kit.

A Mason jar, just like my grandma used to do!

I keep most of them in their little pouch and write a description of the item they came from. Then I keep the pouches in the bottom compartment of my sewing box. Gotta keep them close to the needle and thread!

Usually I sew them to a side seam or the hem of the garment. Got tired of digging through a button box trying to find the proper matching button.

I am giggling at the image of you with a “huge biscuit tin” full of buttons. I also keep my buttons in a smaller tin which was packaging for a watch. I keep buttons only– no little bags. I don’t think I’ve ever used one of the spare buttons but I like keeping them. I have needed spare buttons at times of course but those are the times, none was provided. ;p

Me too! I have a little tin that I filled up, so moved them to a pretty hat box. I want to make something from them, but haven’t figured out what yet! Any ideas?

i sense that some crafty ylf-ers will be able to make a statement necklace or bracelet from those buttons!

I throw them all away! I’ve never had any occasion to even go looking for one. I’m surprised so many people keep them.

Mine are also in a zip lock bag, near my GIANT ziplock bag (full of lots of little ziplock bags) of buttons bought on ebay.

I have them in film cannisters in my button drawer in my sewing machine cabinet. Every once in a while, I’ll need one button for a project and then I’ll check to see if I still have the garment it goes with, if not, it’s a good way to whittle down the stash.

I have an old Christmas tin that I use and it’s getting very full so I’ll need to find a new one soon.
There is so much similarity in how we all save our buttons and we each seem to have sentimental feelings about how we store them.

You must have about 20 times as many clothes as me because all my spare buttons are in a little pouch.

I like it when they are sewn to the inner label best. No chance of losing them.

I keep mine in one of those plastic craft containers that are divided for holding embroidery floss. That way I can keep things sorted by color and it makes it easier to find one if I need it.

I also keep mine in a tin. It’s white with bright yellow and green flowers on it. I’ve had it for many years. I do keep all the envelopes and label them or if in plastic, I do what Laura does and keep a portion of the label to stick inside. I go through the tin periodically and transfer the buttons from clothes I no longer own and add them to my button jars in my sewing room. They are old caning jars and the buttons are divided into color groups. They look really nice all lined up on a shelf in my sewing cabinet.

Ummm…strategy? I must confess, mine are located in random spots in messy drawers :-S

I keep mine in my sewing box. I just add a description on the envelopes they come in to help me find what I need.

Mine are spread across 7 or 8 houses in 4 states. I always set them aside to keep but forget to put them somewhere safe. Then they get knocked over and lost. I always find lots when we move but then they get put in the “random” box and are never heard from again…poor little buttons.

I do the same thing as you – a large box with spare ribbons and thread, but I keep them in individual ziploc bags that the buttons come with (some bags are recycled from past beading purchases) because I find it a little easier to sort through that way.

I’m sure that I no longer have some of the items that the buttons belong to, so heaven knows what I’ll do with all of the unnecessary buttons someday.

I love this post!!
I save buttons like a crazy woman. My granddaughter loved to play with them , sort them by color and size. I have tons of buttons and save them all from my purchases.

I just lost a button on my new trench while on vacation earlier this week and didn’t worry at all…had the extra button at home:)

Mine are stored in a too-small tin that’s currently overflowing and unmanageable. No good ideas here. I have a million buttons from every piece of clothing I have ever purchased, yet when I need to find the match, it’s not there.

I keep mine in their original little paper bags in a pretty big cardboard box. The trouble is that a lot. I used to put little stickies on them with descriptions but it quickly became too much work.

I used to have them nicely organized in a small plastic bin and honestly, the bin filled up and now they are all over the place. The funny thing is that I don’t know if I’ve EVER replaced a button on a clothing item. I’m more likely to just let it languish in a laundry pile and get rid of it eventually! I used to save the little plastic bag as well as the tag and write a small description of them item but it become too cumbersome at some point. I like the idea of just keeping the buttons in a glass jar for display. Maybe I’ll get crafty one day and do something with all of them (along with my enormous collection of wine corks that I’m going to one day make into a cork board!).

This is too funny! My mother always kept them in a fruit cake tin and I kept mine in a smaller candy tin in my bureau–until recently, that is, when they overwhelmed the candy tin and had to be transferred to a Ziploc bag!

I’m with Tara — random spots in messy drawers. Which is really not a problem, because I’ve never had occasion to go looking for one.

I actually keep mine in a little booklet with pockets meant to hold business cards. Sometimes I include a note to remember what the button goes to. This works well for me, but it is not a large volume of buttons. I think the system may make it easy to get rid of the buttons from garments that I no longer have. What can I say? I am an avid filer of all things.

I also cut a bit of the tag and stick it in the little plastic bag to remember what garment it goes to. Most of my buttons are in a clear box in my dresser drawer. I haven’t yet lost a button, but I like the idea of keeping them.

I used to love playing with my mum’s jar of buttons and now my 4yo DD likes playing with my box of buttons (the box came with some smart toiletries in – a shame to throw it away). Like my mother I try to avoid her playing too often with them as she needs supervision so they don’t go all over the place! So I keep all the buttons but am not so good at sewing on the ones that come off.

I think it’s cheating to put a label from the garment in with them, though. Surely part of the fun is that sense of frustration that ‘I know it must be here somewhere’!

THIS is probably the best way to organise them: use a business card organiser.

http://www.marthastewart.com/g.....fix-it-kit

I have recycled a see through plastic jar (it once held fruit) to store my buttons. This jar is kept up high on a shelf in the laundry. I learnt to store this special jar out of sight and out of reach of my children after I discovered that they had raided it one day for “really fun craft activities mummy!” (ARRRRGGGGGHHHH!)

at this point they are all thrown in a drawer that I keep jewelry in. Yep, just tossed in there. I think I know what needs to be added to my chore list today. I really like Laura’s idea to stick a tag in the little baggie.
hmm, maybe I’ll go shopping for a pretty jar today…..

How timely! I just spent part of a very hot Sunday afternoon sorting through my spare buttons. Whenever I buy a new garment that has spare buttons, I take a Polaroid photo (I have a vintage camera) of the item. Then I glue the photo, receipt, garment tag and extra button still in its mini zip-lock bag on 8 1/2 x 11 card stock which is hole-punched and put into one large binder which is divided by garment type. Some items come with extra sequins, yarn or beads, which are also glued on the page. My husband, a VERY organized mechanical engineer, suggested this method. If something is worn out or donated, I pull the binder and decide if I can use the extra buttons, yarn, etc. for something else creative. If not, I shred the receipt, recycle the paper and toss the rest.

How timely! I just spent part of a very hot Sunday afternoon sorting through my spare buttons. Whenever I buy a new garment that has spares, I take a Polaroid photo (I have a vintage camera) of the item. Then I glue the photo, receipt, garment tag and extra button still in its mini zip-lock bag on 8 1/2 x 11 card stock which is hole-punched and put into one large binder which is divided by garment type. Some items come with extra sequins, yarn or beads, which are also glued on the page. My husband, a VERY organized mechanical engineer, suggested this method. If something is worn out or donated, I pull the binder and decide if I can use the extra buttons, yarn, etc. for something else creative. If not, I shred the receipt, recycle the paper items and toss the rest.

For my own clothing I try to sew the extra button into the side seam so that it says with the garment. For those that don’t get sewn in and most of DH’s extra buttons I’ve found my son’s abandoned plastic binder pages that held baseball cards to be perfect. I keep the buttons in plastic bags with label to give me a clue as to which garment, and pop the whole thing into one of the pockets. Sometimes several buttons will fit into a pocket. If they are not in a little plastic bag, I may need to use a bit of clear tape to keep the buttons from sliding out.
All buttons on a page are in the same color family. Extra sequins or pieces of yarn store well this way too. The pages go into a binder that is kept with other sewing stuff. It’s easy to page through to find a button quickly. If clothing is donated or discarded, the buttons get taken out of the binder and might be saved in a zip lock, especially shirt buttons. We go through lots of shirt buttons.

I used to keep them all. At first I would label each button with the name of the item. Soon I progressed to putting them in a ziploc bag. After a while I realized I had buttons of items I no longer own, so now I just toss them out. I don’t recall ever using any of the extra buttons. If I did need one I’d just run to a craft store and pick one up now.

Similarly, has anyone ever used those extra bits of thread that you get with a sweater? School shopping for my oldest and I now have a pile of thread. I can’t imagine how you would use it! And it’s such a short piece that they give you!

I throw them all out. And that goes for the extras conveniently sewn on a tag – I’m one of those people who removes all tags from garments because they make me itch.

I realized several years ago that I never have used the extra button OR sweater thread, so why accumulate them? If you have a large tin full, how would you ever track down the specific one you need? If I should ever have something that needs a new button & that it’s worth making the effort, I’ll buy a replacement or would even replace all of them if I can’t find one that matches.

I’m so impressed with so many organized methods. Mine started out in a tin and have since overflowed into a drawer in the bathroom where I get dressed most of the time. I’m currently on a purging kick, so I think I will throw caution to the wind and throw them all away. I can’t remember the last time I used one. New acquisitions will get the extras sewn into a seam if I can summon the discipline.

Mine live in the sock drawer.

I do keep the spares in a tin container. I have never needed a spare button. But once I was tweaking a dress and found that I needed a spare and none had been included… for a 11 button garment! I sometimes use unique buttons for scrapbook pages.

If they are in a little bag or sewn onto a side label, I cut the label off (or remove the little bag), staple it to the garment’s tag and put it into a vintage tin. If the button is sewn into a side seam and it doesn’t bother me, I leave it. If it’s in an irritating place or makes the garment’s fit off, I remove it, tape it to the garment’s tag and toss it into the tin. I like to attach the buttons (and spare yarn) to the tag so I can easily remember which navy blue button goes to which navy blue garment.

I write down a brief description of the garment on the reverse of the price tag and then include that in the little baggie that the button comes in. Then I store it in one place in my closet (I outgrew biscuit tins too). I have so many, I’m afraid I won’t be able to find the right one if I do end up needing one. I like the idea of color coding so it at least reduces the time spent looking. I might do that on a rainy afternoon in my spare time.

I slip the little plastic bag with the button in it (and any care instruction tags) over a hanger and use that hanger for the jacket or blouse or slacks. Most of the bags have a small hole in them, if not I punch one in. If there’s no bag, I use a small plastic bag or staple the care instructions to an index card. When I wear the garment I keep that hanger out until I return the garment to the hanger and then put it (and it’s plastic bag) back in the closet.

I have a pretty clear jar on my dresser and empty them out of the little envelopes into the jar….it’s very decorative to look at – and if I really needed a matching button, I could always give my kids the task of trying to find it…kind of like the memory game!

I have a tupperware container that I keep in the linen closet. When the buttons come in a little white envelope, I label the envelope with the clothing item and toss them in the container as is.

I do what Eternal*Voyageur @ Venusian*Glow described off of Martha Stewart Living. I put them in plastic sleeve protectors with multiple small pockets. I include the tags so I know what goes with what. Works for me!