button box does anyone still have them?

Yes, but trawling through it tonight for buttons for a new sweater (changing the naff ones on it) I realise that I have not kept any worth saving. However I did find 3 covered buttons which I remember having on one of my first maternity dresses in 1973!

Yes I have a button box, in fact it is an old toffee tin which was my Nana's. I love buttons, can't resist a good rummage in the charity shops.

I like to make bags, purses and the like, and love choosing just the right buttons to tart them up. Funny thing is though I refuse to sew a button on a shirt, DH has to do that himself

Yes my button box is actually a round tin with birds and cherries on it which clearly once contained chocolates as it has Cadbury's written on it. I don't remember the chocolates but it is full of assorted buttons and toggles like so many other GNers. I think there is an odd 'old' coin too. I loved the 3d piece and silver 6d.

My sewing tin is a Queen's Silver Jubilee one, 1977 the year of birth of my oldest son, probably picked up at a Flea Market or Jumble Sale as I would never have bought it new! Needles and pins are kept in old 'Strepsils' tins inside it. The original recycling I think. I still rarely throw anything out. DGC come for materials for school projects/homeworks now.

You'll never be poor with a button box.

I too have a National Dried Milk tin Katek - I bought it home from my mum's house when we cleared it out. No buttons in it, however. Sadly I don't know what happened to mum's button tin but I know my daughters used to love sorting through the buttons when they were little. I just have a few buttons for babies cardigans in a tiny plastic box - I knit for charity as I have no little ones to knit for

Oh yes I have one. I have such happy memories of playing with the buttons in my mum's button box.

Don't have one myself, but your post brought back lovely memories of playing 'schools ' with my nans button box, lining them up and pretending they were children.

I used to love sifting through my mum's tin (old National dried milk tin). Now I have my own, my DGD, almost 2, loves grandma"s button tin

I went through the dozens - no hundreds! - of buttons in my tins and could not find a matching set of nice buttons suitable for the baby cardigan!

Where is Woolworth's when you need it?

Yes,I have my gran's-an old Co-operative biscuit tin-filled with buttons,buckles and trims.Even a hat pin or two and some thimbles that belonged to my great-gran!I also have my mom's button tin,added to over the years.My youngest grandson loves to rummage through them and it brings back lots of happy memories.My daughter crochets and always has a look for suitable buttons before resorting to buying some.

My grandmother had a brown teapot full of buttons that we used to play with when we went to stay. I throw the spare one you get when you buy clothes into a cupboard but I've never had to sew one on.
I support a charity called Knit-a-Square (forum.knit-square.com)and occasionally send them buttons but I forget the ones in the cupboard. I'll have to dig them out now that I've been reminded.

Katek - that takes me back. My Mum had hers in an old Darkblue/lightblue Sedlitz Powders tin. I learned to sort and count with the box and still have it now with additions from my collection. I also taught my son to sort and count by this method and now my grandchildren too. GD1 wants me to leave the box to her in my Will (she is 7) so I have promised to do that.

Yes, inherited from my Mum who inherited it from her Mum, which must mean some of the buttons are well over a hundred years old!

Ditto Lindajoy - some of them are mother of pearl.
I wonder how many people are like me though and never able to find just the right thing in there ?

I inherited my Grandma's button bag and it was only recently that I realised it was a gas mask holder made of a sort of faux leather. It finally fell to pieces and now I have my own posh jar. There are all shades of buttons including old rubber vest or liberty bodice ones.(Anyone remember them?). The trouble is that there are never enough of any colour to use on knitted cardigans etc. so I end up buying more!

I inherited my button tin from my mum, but it started life with my great great grandma, who was Irish, from County Clare, but came over to Lancashire in 1860.
There are some beautiful buttons in it, dating from before they left Ireland, probably worth quite a bit to collectors, but I'm never going to part with them.
My great great gran, great gran, nan and mum were all very organised and wrapped 'special' buttons in paper and labelled them, but I just chuck mine in!
I removed the silk covered buttons from my wedding dress and stitched the silver and crystal buttons from my great gran's wedding dress on in their place. It was lovely to wear them, and they looked good too!
My personal favourites are many different lots of wood and silver Art Deco buttons dating from when my great gran was a buyer for Bloomingdale's in New York, they're very elegant!
Of course, if I want just one shirt or blouse button, can I find just the size and colour which I need? Can I 'eck as like!

Only yesterday I got mine out, My DD asked for them for GS aged 3 his now on the button system !! two small jars when his good he gets a button in the good jar and then theres a bad jar if they are all in good jar by the time he goes to bed he gets a treat. Seems to have worked for her friends children, Lets see ;)

My buttons are kept in a hat box with a button motif on it. I loved playing with my granny's button box and remember sorting the buttons into colours, shapes, number of holes in them etc. When I trained as a teacher I appreciated how much early maths I got from all that playing with buttons and started my own button box then. I waited a long time to become a granny myself so my collection is huge but not as interesting as my own granny's. I do have the special buttons that used to be on my dad's overalls ( he was a cotton spinner and they all wore white bibbed overalls with soft buttons ), and buttons from my children's clothes so I'm passing on a bit off social history too.
Years ago I had a very nice jumper which I spilled bleach on. There were two bleached out blobs, one near the neckline and one near the hemline. I got out my button box and rooted out lots of buttons with interesting shapes and textures in complementary colours and sewed them in groups over the bleached areas. Every time I wore it people admired it, I was so pleased with myself!

I have several. Not sure why as I no longer sew anything and more often than not there are none suitable when I need one. I inherited my Mamma's (Grandma's), DMs, DMiLs and also DHs aunts. Need to have a thorough clearout I think though will find it difficult to part with them. I also have their sewing kits and umpteen bobbins of cotton.

Of course I have a button box with an assorted collection of old pearl buttons which I ask for back when the item of clothing is no longer required.

I've got my Mum's wooden workbox, containing all sorts of bits and bobs (white fabric buttons for your liberty bodice anyone?) Mum had been a dressmaker, so I've got her silver thimble (which I use) tailor's chalks etc. Useful if I need a press-stud, hook & eye, piece of elastic, bodkin or curved needle
Mum made all our clothes - which means of course that I never bothered to learn, as her sewing and knitting was so much better than mine
I love embroidery, and do patchwork, but my dressmaking skills are confined to hemming, sewing on name tapes - and invisible mending, which is why every time I visit my DC, there's a request for these skills...

Yes have my mums button tin a very old cow and gate one. Have some lovely buttons that belonged on my clothes and my brother and sisters. Lovely memories

I love buttons and I inherited some lovely ones from my MIL. I have started one for my DGD and we buy them together.

Yes indeed and all sorted by colour in Tate and Lyle see through plastic 'jars' from way back. I can usually find what I want and often change whole sets of buttons on inherited clothes. I can't abide metal buttons so they have to be changed. Any clothes not good enough for the charity shop always get de-buttoned and I have been known to buy clothes in the charity shop just to get their buttons. The children and now their children learned colours with the help of my button jars.

Yes, I am a knitter so I adore buttons. I have my own button box, but also snap them up when I see them at car boot sales, or charity shops. I love going through someone's collection and just thinking about who they were. Sometimes I find some military buttons from a bygone age. What a story these could tell.