Fabric Covered Buttons

I recently shared with you how I created a bed pelmet. There were a few steps in creating it. One of the finer details to make it look completely finished was to cover the screw heads with fabric covered buttons.

In case you missed it, HERE is the post with the DIY tips to create a bed pelmet.

Creating the fabric covered buttons adds a lovely custom look to the pelmet and they are super duper easy to make. For my DIY fabric covered buttons, I used a kit, LIKE ONE OF THESE. Later on in this post I detail how I added a little extra ruffle around the outside edge of the fabric covered buttons.

Here are the simple steps, with a few tips I have found that work well for me when I’m making fabric covered buttons. By the way, no tools required! All the ‘tools’ you need are included in the kit.

Step 1:

Cut a circle of your fabric, about twice the diameter of the domed button cap in the kit. (There are many sizes of DIY fabric covered buttons available, which I have linked at the top and bottom of this post)

Step 2:

Place the circle of fabric over the top the flexible rubber type form. It’s the larger of the two ‘tools’ they include in the kit.

Step 3:

Set the domed button cover, dome side down, over the fabric circle and press it into the flexible form.

It should look like this:

Step 4:

Trim away some of the fabric if you feel it’s a bit too much. Just be sure that there is enough all the way around the circumference of the button to completely tuck inside the button, hiding all the raw edges once button halves are joined.

Step 5:

Place the shank half of the button, shank side up, on top of the gathered fabric, which is still in the flexible form.

Step 6:

Press the shank button half into the form, (be sure to tuck all the fabric end inside the two layers of button parts).

Step 7:

Use the smaller hard plastic tool to set inside the shank and press it down firmly, very firmly, to get the shank side of the button to snap into the domed front side of the button.

I found it helpful to actually flip it over and use the hard table surface to push it into place. You can see why too much fabric inside the button layers would be an issue.

Another issue could be if you applied to much direct pressure to the center of the domed top during this step. It could cause the dome to dent in. If that were to happen, as long as the two halves aren’t totally joined together, you can get to the inside of the dome half and push the dent back out. Once the two sides are totally joined, however, there’s no taking them apart.

Step 8:

When your two halves of the button are joined together, you can see how the shank side snaps into the edge of the domed side. Then you can easily ‘pop’ your newly fabric covered button out of the flexible form.

Once in a while, I’ve had it where I thought it was totally snapped together, but after I popped it out of the form, there was small edge not completely snapped together. In that case if I couldn’t squeeze it together with my fingers, I just put it back in the form and pushed it together with the blue tool.

That’s it! Aren’t they so cute? Totally ready to sew or glue on your project.

I added one more detail to mine though… a little ruffle around the circumference of the button.

This method I did for applying the ruffle worked great for my project because the fabric covered buttons would be glued on the pelmet. I don’t think this would work great for a button getting sewn on.

Step 9, 10 and 11: 🙂

I cut a narrow strip of fabric, pressed it in half, zig-zagged the edges so it wouldn’t fray.

Step 12:

I stitched a long basting stitch along the raw edges, (over the zig zag) of the folded fabric. Then pulling one end of this batting stitch, I could easily create a gathered ruffle.

Step 13:

Using hot glue, the gathered strips were held in place on the back of the button, one little ruffle per button.

To attach the finished fabric covered buttons to the bed pelmet, I just simply put a dab of glue on the back of the button and ‘stuck’ it onto the screw head, covering the unsightly hardware.

It’s a super simple detail that makes such a lovely difference.

HERE is a link with several options for the kits to DIY your own fabric covered buttons!

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