Button Heart Picture Tutorial

Today we are going to learn how to make a beautiful button heart picture using buttons from your stash. Although the timing is perfect if you’d like to make a gift for someone for Valentine’s Day, it will also look smashing left up on your walls all year long.

I began by drawing a rather stylized heart, picking out some red, white and pink buttons from my stash, and adding a few other buttons I bought special for this project. Hope you have as much fun as I did making your own button heart picture!

Materials for Button Heart Picture

• Assorted Buttons*
• Water color paper or cardstock – at least 8 1/2″ x 11″. My water color paper was 9″ x 12″
• Glue gun
• Fine tipped marker (optional)
• Frame – used 11 by 14 inch frame matted to 8 by 10 inch
• Heart Pattern

*Most of the buttons came from my stash but I bought the following buttons on Amazon:

• Mixed Wooden Buttons – wood painted buttons with dots and plaids for interest
• 100 Tiny Buttons – great for filling in small spaces

Directions for Button Heart Picture

Make a copy of the pattern or create your own heart.

Collect buttons in the colors you desire. I’ve have been collecting buttons FOREVER! Still, I did purchase a few extra that I thought would add to the project.

Cut out heart pattern and LIGHTLY trace onto watercolor paper or card stock. TIP: Before cutting out the heart pattern cover the edges with packing tape or scotch tape. This will make the edge ridged and make it easier to trace around it.

Begin by placing buttons on the heart. Do not glue at this point. Although the buttons will shift slightly once you start gluing this will give you a rough idea of the finished design.

Continue adding buttons to your heart until it is filled in.

Although you can use crafting glue, it is far easier to use a glue gun. The glue dries immediately and the buttons will not slide around your design while you continue to work.

Using a long pin, start removing the buttons one at a time and glue into place. HINT: I go through the design and glue down the largest buttons first. I consider them to be the anchor of the design. After they are firmly in place I pick a spot and start gluing adjacent buttons around the big buttons. As you continue to glue you will probably find that the buttons won’t all fit exactly like you planned. As I glued mine down I had to remove 8 buttons from the design. When I was done, I went back and found additional buttons that fit the remaining holes.

This is what my design looked like when I finished gluing on the buttons. You can leave it like this if you would like.

I wanted more depth and texture to my design so I glued additional buttons on top of the the original design. I used far fewer buttons, just enough to fill in a few of the open spaces on the heart and to add a bit of interest. Your button heart picture is now ready to frame.

NOTE: I decided I wanted to define the edge of the heart a bit more and added dots around the whole heart. To be quite honest, I have mixed feelings about how it turned out. From a distance I like the dots, but up close I prefer the undefined edge. You choice!