Log In

OUR CULTURE

The World Button Association began with a handful of button enthusiasts to create a sense of community
among collectors, artisans, historians, fashionistas and simply anyone who is curious and enjoys buttons. 

The World Button Association promotes a culture of respect and camaraderie where all are welcome who honor the
​mission and vision of the organization. We embrace all aspects of buttons including research and their use in industry and the arts.

THE BOARD

Debbie Allnutt, President

Like many collectors, my first contact with buttons came when I was a child. Each year during summer vacation my family’s tradition was to drive to some destination on the other side of the country. Whenever my mother saw a sign along the roadway that said buttons were being sold, we’d stop. She and I would then go into the store and rifle through whatever containers held those beauties.

My mother was not a collector. Her objective was to gather mostly glass buttons of specific colors to make bracelets. I often wonder what treasures we left behind in those boxes. At the time I thought if I ever saw another button it would be too soon. Times sure have changed!

​Precious are the buttons we receive in unexpected ways; the button a friend gave us, the one we found in some out-of-the-way antique store, and the ones passed down through charm strings and button tins. We hold history in our hands. We meet interesting people on our journey of discovery. We marvel at the way buttons adorned clothing in bygone eras. Over the last 30 years I’ve made memories and friends and there can never be enough of those, or buttons.

Allie Nelson, Secretary

I got involved with button collecting around 2004 when I was 10 years old. My mom found a local button club in California, and we joined together. At the time, I was mostly just interested in realistic and horse buttons and didn’t care as much about terminology.

In 2024, I had been volunteering at Austin Creative Reuse for a while, and when they found out I used to collect buttons, they asked if I’d be their button specialist and organize and price all their button donations. After that, I got back into collecting. As an adult, I’ve loved learning more about the history and terminology of buttons and joined the Austin, Texas, national, and now world button clubs.

I’m also a freelance wedding photographer and videographer. My dad did wedding photography growing up, and so I learned from him and later attended UT Austin for Radio, TV, and Film. I now run my own business focusing on weddings, events, and portraits.

Tara Boynton, Director

   Buttons have always interested me, but I had no idea other people liked them too! About eighteen years ago, by chance, I found there was a whole group of people interested in buttons as well! I joined the National Button Society along with several state societies. I have been hooked ever since.

     Along with holding various jobs with different state button societies, I was on the Board of the National Button Society for three years.
​
     Before buttons, fabrics were a love of mine, too. I’ve always loved sewing and crafting. Nowadays, I spend my time with family, traveling, and playing with my buttons. And, of course, going to button shows and button zooms where I have met many wonderful friends!

Susan Weston Smith, Director

Susan Weston Smith (known as Susie) says working in the volunteer world is her passion. Susie served as Publicity Chair and on the Nominating Committee of the National Button Society and is an active member in the Ottawa Valley Button Club meetings and events.

When not playing with her buttons she says she keeps out of trouble as the production editor of an online magazine thousandislandslife.com. She is also the author of the First Summer People, Thousand Islands 1650-1910, Boston Mills Press, 1993. Susie has an interest in fashion, the role buttons play in the past and today, and hosts the Button Runway once a month. Be sure to check out our Event Page to see the next presentation.

Sylvia Liszka Durell, Director

I am a snowbird who lives in Florida and Ohio. My first introduction to buttons was my mother's sewing cabinet. It sat by our big picture window, and on top of it rested our house phone. Anytime I was on the phone, I would rifle through the colorful tangle of threads, seam tape,s and buttons, attracted by the juxtaposition of items and colors. However, it wasn’t until I bought a wall hanging covered with buttons at an estate sale that I saw buttons as little works of art that could also be used to express one’s creativity.
​
After my retirement about eleven years ago, I created a slide presentation: “The History of Buttons: Why We Collect the Little Works of Art.” I have always been concerned about our button-collecting hobby “aging out,” so my presentation’s purpose was to attract people to the hobby. Happily, it and the expertise of a couple of local button collectors helped start the Hernando County Button Collectors Group in Hernando County FL. I also manage the Florida State Button Society’s Facebook page.
     
As an artist, I love to try different media to make art including using buttons. In the past, I created a number of button art tutorials for the National Button Society, which can still be seen on YouTube. I have also had fun writing poetry about buttons for a couple WBA creative events, as well as Haiku that describe buttons.​

Lori Franz, Vice President

Lori Franz was raised in Denver and moved to Portland following graduate school—originally intending to stay for only a year. Forty-five years later, she continues to call Portland home. During that time, she built a long career as a psychotherapist working with adults and couples. Lori and her husband, Peter, are approaching their 40th wedding anniversary and enjoy having their son living nearby. She delights in her button hobby and gardening, and considers herself fortunate to lead a fulfilling life.
​
A button collector for the past fifteen years, Lori has been an active member of her local clubs and of the Oregon State Button Society, where she served as president from 2020 to 2024 and continues as membership and publicity coordinator. She also served two years as a director of the National Button Society. At present, she contributes her design skills to the World Button Association by creating weekly program graphics and regularly attending its wonderful programs.

Joy Journeay, Treasurer

​I’ve been sewing and using buttons since elementary school and collecting buttons seriously since 1993. Technological changes now allow us immediate access to old buttons and the rich history they share.

Long after our clothing has disintegrated to dust, the buttons which held it remain—whether snipped for frugal reuse or to save their beauty. A pink plastic button worn for decades on a mother’s house dress can instantly bring tears to the eyes of her daughter when it tumbles from the sewing box. Memories of every smile, opinion, and scent flood the heart. What else can powerfully bring back the humming of hymns while dishes are washed, strong hands kneading bread, the smell of loamy soil tamped over vegetable seeds, and the giggles while capturing earthworms?

However a button was worn, it was handled hundreds if not thousands of times. It was salvaged for reuse again and again, waiting in a button box until plucked for its next life.

Most mothers no longer sew, and button boxes are vanishing. Buttons hold our clothing: they also hold our history. For centuries buttons have touched us from birth until we are placed in the ground.

Language is not needed to convey the button’s intimate role in our daily lives, whether lived in a hut or a salon of leisure. We are honored to celebrate this global button connection.

Gina Barrett, Director

Gina is a textile artist and author best known for her buttons. Her passion for buttons began like so many others: button boxes and picking special buttons for clothing. Later, she developed an interest in historical passementerie and dress trimmings, particularly learning how these items were made. An offhand question, asking if she could make replicas of thread buttons on a doublet from the 1620s, was the catalyst for focusing on textile buttons. Her button collection is primarily textile buttons (“it’s not a collection, it's for study purposes…”), and now is slowly expanding to include handmade leather buttons, studio buttons, and buttons of other materials that imitate fabric!
     
Gina has created buttons and trimmings for museums, television, film, and designers, producing historical reproductions and designing new items based on historical techniques. She has written books to keep these techniques alive, and enjoys teaching historic button-making techniques.

Gina is a member of the World Button Association, the British Button Society, and the National Button Society. She enjoys many forms of handwork, incorporating techniques from around the world. She and her husband, Mark, run Gina-B Silkworks, bringing traditional textile crafts to a broader audience.

Cathy Buresch, Director

My name is Cathy Buresch and I currently live between Concord and Newland, NC, depending on the season of the year. I was born and raised in Milwaukee, WI, and spent the first 40 years of my life there. Then in 1996 I uprooted my husband Brian and daughter Noel, and we moved to NC as I was recruited by IBM.

I learned to sew early as my grandmothers and mother sewed everything from clothing to curtains but my preference has always been quilting, which is how I became interested in button collecting. I was invited to a button show program on “Charm Strings” by two close friends who just happen to own my favorite quilt shop. I attended and was hooked. I’ve always had an interest in antiques, and button collecting seemed like a natural step in combining my two favorite hobbies.  28 years of collecting later . . .  I’ve held every office for the 350+ membership of the Charlotte Quilters Guild and the same for the North Carolina State Button Society. Now retired from my official career, I have more time for family, friends, community service AND button selection, sorting, cleaning and research. I look forward to supporting WBA!