 <p>The problem is that you have no template. Your XAML should look somehow like this:</p> <pre><code>&lt;Window x:Class="HKC.Desktop.Window1" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" Title="Window1" Height="487" Width="765.924" Loaded="Window_Loaded"&gt; &lt;Window.Resources&gt; &lt;ControlTemplate x:Key="buttonTemplate" TargetType="{x:Type Button}"&gt; &lt;Ellipse Name="el1" Fill="Orange" Width="100" Height="100"&gt; &lt;ContentPresenter VerticalAlignment="Center" HorizontalAlignment="Center" Content="{TemplateBinding Button.Content}" /&gt; &lt;/ControlTemplate&gt; &lt;/Window.Resources&gt; &lt;Grid x:Name="mainGrid" Background="#FF252525"&gt; &lt;Button Content="Push Me" Template="{StaticResource buttonTemplate}" Name="button1" Height="100" Width="100"/&gt; &lt;/Grid&gt; &lt;/Window&gt; </code></pre>