Children and the buttons they love will be the theme for the New Jersey State Button Society Show and Competition on Saturday, September 8. At 11 a.m. Susan Infosino leads a free hands-on program for children, “Kids & Buttons: Collecting That’s Beyond Fun,” as part of the New Jersey State Button Society (NJSBS) Show and Competition. At 2 p.m. Jane Albanowski and Sara Mulford will present a program for adults, “A Fun Collectible for Children and Adults – Realistics Through the Years.”
To learn about the competitions for fall and spring, click here.
Open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., the button show is at the Union Fire Company fire hall, 1396 River Road (Route 29), Titusville, NJ 08560, and there is plenty of free parking. Admission is $2 for adults, free for children and teens to age 17. For information, contact Cynthia Bartlett at 732-356-4132 or buttonsinnewjersey@gmail.com or visit http://newjerseystatebuttonsociety.org.
The “Kids and Buttons” program is for ages four and beyond. “While providing children with a large assortment of buttons to select from and assemble on a beginner collector card, I will share — with the accompanying adults — activities that promote learning and social skills,” says Infosino. Known as “Susie Buttons,” the Hunterdon County resident is a wife, mom, and early childhood educator by day, devoted button collector/crafter when time allows. Christine Gudrian, a Forked River resident who owns Christine’s Collectibles in Smithville, will supply some of the buttons for this program.
Realistic buttons are shaped like the animals or objects they represent. When the Depression opened, women were still sewing their clothes and buttons were an obvious part of clothing apparel,” says Albanowski. “However, as the lean years continued and the country entered into WWII, women began to work in factories. There was far less time to sew clothes at home. Buttons aimed for children now took on a new form: realistic–to appeal to as toys when little else was available.”
Members of the NJSBS share an interest in studying, collecting, and preserving clothing buttons, both old and new. The show attracts antique enthusiasts, quilters, crafters, re-enactors, and those seeking special buttons to wear. Says Infosino: “Thanks to buttons I have met the nicest people and experienced innumerable hours of creative escape!”
For the spring show, members enter judged competitions. Competitions in the fall are judged by popular vote and are more relaxed. One challenge involves illustrating a poem from Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses. Another award calls for finding picture buttons that illustrate the letter “C. To learn about the competitions for fall and spring, click here.
The Union Fire Company & Rescue Squad building is located at the intersection of Route 29 and Park Lake Avenue in Titusville, opposite the Delaware River and D&R Canal State Park (with easy access to the canal park), a half mile north of Washington Crossing State Park in Hopewell Township, and some five miles south of Lambertville and New Hope, PA
New Jersey State Button Society 