{Giveaway} Dazzling Button Jewelry
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FOF Susan Davis is giving away one of her handmade, antique pieces of jewelry to one lucky winner. Enter to win by answering in the comments below: Which of these three pieces of jewelry would you most like to win: the All That Jazz Bracelet/Necklace, Bronze Button and Abalone Watch, or Classical Trio Necklace.
Susan Davis was working in public relations for seven years in Baton Rouge when she and her husband decided to move to South Louisiana and become farmers on her family’s farm. “I found out I hated it,” says Susan. “So, I started looking for a craft that I could do.”
One afternoon in 1985, Susan was spending time with her grandmother who lived next door. Susan was rummaging through her grandmother’s button collection, when she was struck with a great idea. “I said ‘Grandma, these would make great earrings!’ She gave me all 30 boxes [of buttons], and I got to work.”
Susan started selling her jewelry line, Grandmother’s Buttons, at local craft fairs that same year. Within a year, she began selling at antique shows. “It was really fun,” says Susan. “After seven years of having a professional job, I had a gypsy lifestyle for about a year just going to shows and setting up on weekends.”
In 1995, Susan and her husband purchased and restored a historic 20th century bank building in St. Francisville, Louisiana, and turned it into a button museum, with a retail store for Grandmother’s Buttons on the first floor. “We have buttons from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries” says Susan. All of the pieces feature buttons made before the 1960s with the exception of some earring sets (made specifically to match certain necklaces). “Many are warehouse finds,” says Susan. “We’ll visit an old factory and buy all of their remains.”
Grandmother’s Buttons jewelry is now sold in over 800 retail stores throughout the U.S., Canada, parts of Europe, and even Shanghai. All of Susan’s pieces are handcrafted, either by Susan herself or by one of her ten team members. Susan estimates she sells about 25 to 35 thousand pieces of jewelry per year on average.
“What I hear the most from our customers is that every time they wear a piece from Grandmother’s Buttons, people ask them about it,” says Susan. “Customers love the feeling of uniqueness that gives them. We treat the buttons like little gems, setting them in the jewelry just as if they were semi-precious stones. We’re extra vigilant about our quality because our pieces are often worn by their owners for decades!”
Enter to win a handmade, antique piece of jewelry from Grandmother’s Buttons by answering in the comments below: Which of these three pieces of jewelry would you most like to win: the All That Jazz Bracelet/Necklace, Bronze Button and Abalone Watch, or Classical Trio Necklace.
One FOF will win. (See all our past winners, here.) (See official rules, here.) Contest closes October 1st, 2012 at midnight E.S.T.