Button, button

I just spent 15 enjoyable minutes sorting through a box of buttons my mother picked up at a yard sale last summer (I think it cost $1). It's one of those squat round metal boxes that used to house butter cookies, but now it's the repostitory of two pounds of the Ugliest Buttons in Ohio.

I have found that if you need a button sorting cohort, a potentially OCD not-quite-three-year-old is the perfect answer. I'm telling you, she was picking up on MY mistakes ("That's blue green, Mom, not green blue!") and was fascinated by the whole experience.

The tackier the button, the better, as far as she's concerned, which makes the whole process more interesting. Rhinestones, spangles, sparkle-embedded-resin ... she's all in favor of it, and she has to show every "coooooool!" button to me for inspection and approval. This gives me plenty of time to muse about the rest of the mundane buttons, trying to figure out what sort of outfit they might have come from. I mean, there aren't that many uses for 2.5" purple plastic buttons that would end up leaving them with huge deep scratches across the front (and who would save such a thing, which would only be useful in the case of a Huge Button Emergency). And why are there a dozen teal shirt buttons in there, each still attached to the metal bale that stuck it to the display card in the store?

Any suggestions on how to store these suckers once they're sorted? I'm thinking one of those hardware caddies from Home Despot, but I'm open to other suggestions. I need room to store about a handful of about a dozen colors of buttons.

And now, if you'll excuse me, she's shouting "Let's play the button game again!" so it looks like I might get to finish sorting out the navy buttons tonight, after all.