Buttons. Protected by Space Tigers.

When I was a kid, my sister and I would spend hours sifting through my mom's tin of buttons. First we would sort them by size, then by color, then we'd each pick out our favorites and make little button families out of them. Each button had it's own personality (that enormous burnt-orange jagged one was SO MEAN.)

For my birthday this year, my sister gave me a tin of vintage buttons. She knows me well - it was the perfect gift. It brought back a lot of memories of me as a kid, sticking my whole hand in the tin and slowly letting the buttons roll over my fingers. I don't think I am alone in this memory, as promptly after I opened the tin, everyone else in the room did that exact thing. So these buttons have been fondled. Heavily. By multiple persons.

Here is a sample of some of the goodies. (Since I was given these, some of my own trinkets have made their way into the mix: an Obama button, the Ernie pendant, a pumpkin earring - but the rest are all bonafide crusty old buttons).

Inexplicably, everyone who has a button collection is required to store them in a Danish butter cookie tin. These particular buttons came in a lovely Christmas tin of their own with a very pleasant looking young lady on the front. I started my own button tin in high school and I am not overstating this when I say, my tin is probably the coolest, most awesomest button tin that ever was. It has tiger cubs on the front. And they are in space. Behold:

Yes, they are standing on the Earth. And, yes, that is a moonscape in the background. And, yes, the orange kitteh has a bigger head than the white kitteh. The only thing that could make this better is if they were sharing a single glass of Tang with two bendy straws sticking out of the glass.

OR... if there was a sexy kitteh using the Earth as a pillow. Or a mommy kitteh holding a baby kitteh holding the Earth. Or if one of the kittehs posed like Jesus.

(Click pictures for better detail)