Haulin’ Hoof Farm Store Creates Whimsical Handmade Buttons

Long before a Haulin’ Hoof Farm Store button is ever sewn onto a sweater, it has already lived quite the life at the Fox family’s communal crafting table. Each button is rolled, stamped, smoothed by hand, fired, painted and glazed, with each ceramic button passing through nearly 14 steps from beginning to end. All of this happens at the family’s 100-acre farm in Athens County, where an online store stocks crafting essentials like yarn bowls, needle minders and its most popular products: ceramic, wood and shed-antler buttons. 

Owners Valerie and Chris Fox met working at George Jones Memorial Farm in Oberlin in 2003. Valerie was head farmer and had just graduated with a degree in sustainable agriculture from the University of Maine. Chris served as the head of site maintenance while getting his own natural-building business off the ground. 

After getting married in 2004 and having their first daughter, Adallie, the Foxes purchased their own farm two years later. When Adallie was 12, she had saved enough money to buy a pottery wheel. Valerie, eager to support her daughter’s interests, decided to make buttons with her scrap clay. The buttons have since become a focus, with Adallie’s younger teen siblings Elsie and Oscar helping make them. 

The family rolls and stamps the clay for each button before drilling and smoothing the holes and cleaning excess material from the back. The buttons’ edges are smoothed with a damp rag before they are bisque-fired and then painted. After the paint dries, the buttons are finished with some fine detailing and layered glazing before going into the kiln. The wooden buttons the family makes come from maple, walnut, cherry and oak trees harvested on the property, which are milled, kiln dried, processed and finished with natural oil and beeswax. 

Customers can buy traditional, solid-color buttons, but the most whimsical creations can be found in the “Animal & Special Theme Buttons” section of Haulin’ Hoof’s website, which shows off buttons shaped like songbirds, pigs, crescent moons, octopi and even a school of fish. 

“It’s fun, especially at these shows where the ladies and the fellows come in, and they have their projects,” Valerie says of her customers’ reactions to the buttons. “It’s like a candy shop for knitters.”

For more information, visit haulinhooffarm.com.

For more Ohio maker inspiration, sign up for our Ohio Magazine newsletters.

Ohio Magazine is available in a beautifully designed print issue that is published 7 times a year, along with Spring-Summer and Fall-Winter editions of LongWeekends magazine. Subscribe to Ohio Magazine and stay connected to beauty, adventure and fun across our state.