The beauty of buttons

Back in my routine now, and a very rainy and grey market day yesterday. I wanted to do a final trawl of the charity shops to see if I could find any little extras for my sales, which are approaching fast. I found: one old bottle, a pretty book, six wooden cotton bobbins....and I was just giving up when I came across these sensational buttons. I think some of them are really old, almost all of them are mother of pearl. Charity shops usually sell buttons individually now, but these were a whole basketful sold as one lot.
The best bit about buying buttons is sorting them out, as you never quite know what you've got until you inspect them very closely. This little crescent moon shaped one is my favourite, I have never seen one before:

I was hoping to paint some final pieces of furniture outside today, but that won't be happening, as our forecast is dire, and for tomorrow, too. I'm going to do some baking for a 50th birthday party later, and put the final touches to the dolls house I've been renovating. A friend spotted it on the blog and said she would like to have it, so it has a good  home all ready and waiting. I'll pop some pics on later....