I was sitting on Grace's bed in her Seattle home (she had kindly let me sleep in her bed while she slept on her parent's floor on a blanket) sorting through stuff that would go into a gift package for my flickr friend, Liz.

Grace was "helping" me do my sorting. Every few seconds she would see something she wanted, and very nicely ask me if she could have it. I obliged. When we got to the little bag of colorful vintage buttons, her eyes lit up like small candles. I asked her if she would like to pick out three buttons for herself (she is almost 3.) Of course, she nodded her head vigorously and proceeded to hem and haw over exactly which three buttons she wanted. I could see it was a really hard decision since there were at least 7 or 8 really cool colors represented in this pile of buttons. So, I told her she could pick out enough buttons to make a small picture on her sweater.

Grace chose a large yellow button for the sun. Five or six reddish buttons for the rays of the sun, a white button for a bird in the sky, two purplish-maroon buttons to be dogs and a blue button for the ocean. I sewed the buttons on her favorite sweater and she wore it to her daycare the next morning.

Her, Grace is showing me the sun.