15 Fun Project Ideas for Crocheters who Love Buttons

Buttons are small circles of joy. They can add pop to any project. And there are just as many buttons as there are personal styles. There are vintage buttons and retro buttons and contemporary buttons. There are simple buttons and detailed buttons, solid buttons and patterned buttons, colorful buttons and neutral buttons. There are buttons of varying shapes and sizes and materials.

Many of the crocheters I know also love buttons (and fabric and paper and other things you can buy at craft stores). Unfortunately, though, you don’t see a lot of buttons in crochet work. Sure, you see the odd button here and there as a closure for a wrap or pillow cover but the button is often almost an afterthought rather than a central piece of the design. In these fifteen projects, we see crocheters celebrating buttons. They are an integral part to the crochet item if not actually the center stage of the piece.

1. Button Centered Crochet Flowers

A really quick, easy and fun way to use buttons is to make them the center piece of a crochet flower.

@Craftapalooza took a free Lion Brand crochet pattern for an Irish rose and dressed it up by doing the crochet work in two colors and then adding super fun floral buttons to the center.

2. Crochet Necklace with Buttons

There are a lot of different ways that you can use buttons and crochet together to make a stunning statement piece necklace. Here are some examples:

Hanging Buttons Necklace, crochet pattern sold on Etsy by PureAndSimplyMe

Buttons on a Chain, free tutorial via Two Butterflies

Stacked Crochet Button Necklace, tutorial sold by Etsy’s ljeans

3. Gather Statement Buttons on a Hat

One of the hats that I included in my roundup of 100 unique crochet hats was a simple hat that became magnificent and special because it had a small collection of large, very unique buttons gathered on it. And of course, hats aren’t the only thing that you can make original with a button collection – three or four buttons strategically placed on any item can elevate that item to a work of art.

Tween’s crochet hat with wood button accents by Etsy’s TeaPartyHats

4. Granny Square Button Cushion

According to Matt does great colorful crochet work including this wonderful idea for making a granny square cushion so much better by adding colorful buttons.

5. Sunflower on a Grid

Suzann Thompson included the pattern for this button-rich sunflower in her book Crochet Bouquet

6. Button-Bedecked Crochet Headband

There is a free tutorial for this crochet headband by @lindamade over on @craftstylish

7. Make a Crochet Clock with Buttons for Numbers

I saw several clocks embellished with buttons when I did my roundup of sensational crochet clocks.

Crochet and Buttons Wall Clock by KendraFayeKnits on Etsy

8. Decorate a Card with Buttons and Crochet

Christmas Card with Crochet Tree and Button Star via CraftJuice

Crochet Heart Valentines Card with Button Bow by Beth-a-Palooza

9. Crochet Button Mushrooms

Free crochet tutorial from Resurrection Fern

10. Think of Buttons as Wheels, Eyes and Other Round Objects

Think of buttons as wheels as you’ve got a whole new idea for making crochet cars:

Thread crochet car from Etsy’s CrochetCluster

Or think of buttons as eyes:

Vintage button eyes crochet owl from Curious Tangles

Get creative and think of what other circular things you could replace with buttons in your crochet and amigurumi. Wherever you might normally crochet some circles, consider putting a button instead.

11. Crochet and Button Brooch

The idea behind this is kind of the same as with crochet flowers – using a button as the centerpiece – but in this case the item is wearable.

Crochet Brooch with Upcycled Button by Flickr’s maximum RABBIT designs

Crochet, lace, ribbon and button brooch by Flickr’s Lucky Lonny

12. Crochet Button Fairy

Made by Flickr’s Yarn Tails

13. Crochet a Button Bracelet

You can make a simple crochet rectangle (or circle worked in the round) for a bracelet and then add buttons and more buttons for a great bracelet.

Crochet Button Bracelet by Flickr’s incywincystitches

From the Let’s Button Up blog

Pink Crochet Button Bracelet by Etsy’s KKCollectibleCollage

14. Mixed Media Art Collage

You probably know by know that I’m a big fan of mixed media. You can take your small crochet motifs and your favorite buttons and combine them on a page or canvas. Buttons and crochet together also work as decoration for scrapbook pages.

Mixed Media Art by Flickr’s PisforPaper

Mixed Media Painting with Crochet and Buttons by Etsy’s artfulcrochet

15. Crochet Covered Buttons

Sometimes when you buy buttons you get a whole bunch in a package and only some are fun and interesting. The others are boring. Take those boring ones and jazz them up with crochet to use on all kinds of different projects. There’s a tutorial for crocheting around buttons on ParaNoire, which is where the image below comes from.

You can also see five more button cover crochet patterns here; they’re for crocheting around button molds but I think they’d work around buttons as well. And by the way, there are also lots of tutorials if you want to crochet buttons with just yarn (not crocheting around a button that you already have). Here are a few options for crochet button tutorials: Beat Knitting Basic Button, 5 step Button from Lion Brand and Small/Large Button Patterns from Yarn Lover’s Room.

Bonus Project:

Crochet these button pillows! Free crochet pattern from Create and Decorate. (@cdeditor)

What kind of buttons do you like? How do you store them? How many do you have? Share your button stories in the comments!