You know the old joke about duct tape: what's light on one side, dark on the other, and holds the universe together? Well, at first gasp, these buttons aren't too bad, excepting for the punty scar on the left (that honking big bubble filled hunk of clear) not to mention streaks of poorly cased pea green on the right. The button the right is actually pretty sweet...

Buttons, october 2008. 24mm edge to edge. Effetre glass.

Till you turn them over, for alas, no amount of duct tape could help. The innocent looking purple flower on a seemingly charming button hides a particularly hideous shank:

Shanks of same. The barely visible glob is supposed to be a signature murrina. All of a piece with the rest of the fugliness...

Cold seal city! I wanted my meco N-midget to go around the join, to melt it in—even my lynx couldn't (at my skill level, anyway) give me a pointed enough flame to smooth out the folds without also melting the button part to floppiness. Adding insult to injury, the camera would focus properly on the misshapen shanks either—after two tries, I gave up, which is why I didn't bother with a higher resolution version of this image.

Moral: I'm going back to clear colorless for shanks, it melts easier and smoother, and to heck with matching the shank and base color. In the meantime, I guess I could put these on my beloved fuzzy green coat, as they're certainly the right color, and probably the correct size, and I suppose I could practically discover just how weak those joints are...

buttons, oct 08. photographs, file, 24oct08.

Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.