Tutorial: How To Make Fabric Covered Button

In the first ‘series’ of iPhone cases I made, I used fabric covered buttons to close the cases. As Luke pointed out, buttons aren’t the quickest thing to open if your phone is ringing, so in this new series of cases I’ve made the buttons ornamental, and used either velcro or clips instead. It’s not quite as aesthetically pleasing, but it does make it easier to open…

Anyway, here’s a tutorial on how to make your own fabric covered buttons. In the tutorial you can see I’ve used a scrap of fabric which is in the case, so it matches, but you can also do some embroidery on them first, like I did for that swap ages ago…

Supplies:

Scrap of fabric
Birch button making kit (you can get these from Spotlight or Lincraft
Pencil (or any smallish blunt object you can push with)
Fabric Scissors

Process:

Before we go through the steps, make sure you have everything in the kit. You should have a red rubber base, and a yellow rubber ‘top’ which fits inside the red piece. You should also have a metal ‘cover’, and a white plastic piece (this is the main foundation of the button). Sometimes the metal casing will already be over the white plastic. If this is the case, just flick it off with your finger nails, or something thin an sharp (a nail file works well).

Step One: Take the red base, and place your scrap of fabric inside, right side DOWN. Push it down a bit with a pencil or something similar.

Step Two: Place your metal cover on top (the edges should face up), and using your pencil, again, push it down. Sometimes this won’t sit perfectly, and that’s where the pencil comes in handy.

Cut the excess fabric off from around the button. A good guide is that all the fabric should sit inside the button without overlapping, so the fabric you leave should be approximately equal to the radius of the button.

If you’re unsure of how much to leave, then be cautious, you can always cut more off later.

Step Three: Once you’ve securely tucked all your excess fabric into the button, place the white button piece on top (flat surface down). Place your yellow ‘top’ over it (flat bit should be on the top), and press down HARD. I am not strong enough sometimes, so I stand on them… :-/

Below is a photo (the one with me holding the button) where you can see the button has been pushed in hard enough. You should be able to see the edges of the fabric the entire way around the button.

Take the yellow piece off, and then take the button out (the red rubber is flexible, so you can squeeze the button out). Your button is finished!!

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