Creative March Madness Idea: Pinback Button Survivor Pool

It is the final week of February and you know what that means…at least for all the sports fans out there: March Madness 2010 is just around the corner.

Even if you are not an avid sports fan, you undoubtedly are familiar with March Madness. This is the term used to describe the month-long process of conference tournaments and then the 65-team national tournament that ultimately results in the crowning of a single champion in mens college basketball.

It has been estimated that this yearly event costs businesses billions of dollars in lost productivity as employees research matchups to fill out their brackets for their office pools, check scores or watch games online, or are just generally distracted by all the talk of favorites, underdogs, upsets, and exciting moments.

So what in the world does March Madness have to do with buttons? Well I’m glad you asked.

Today, we are going give you a create idea for your office pool that – not surprisingly – involves buttons!

Continue reading

Circle Cutters Make the (Button) World Go Round

What is the best friend of a button maker?

We suppose that is a difficult question to answer, with many possibilities. Some people might say that their button machine wins the prize, while others might say that there would be no prize without button supplies. But, just for your eyes, is another opinion for you to surmise…

Maybe the circle cutter – yes, the circle cutter – is actually a button maker’s best friend.

Continue reading

Thinking Outside the Box: Selling Print-Ready Button Graphics

One of our goals with The Button Blog has always been to broaden the horizons of your button making world in a variety of ways. In addition to telling you about all of the many button varieties that are possible to make, and providing you with various resources to help you make them, we also want to present you with ideas that can help you achieve a return on the investment of time and money that you put into your button making.

This particular blog post is one of those, and today’s idea comes from Etsy, where an enterprising craft enthusiast has provided us all with a unique means of generating extra revenue by selling ready-to-print button graphics.

Continue reading

ABM Customer Spotlight: Operation Smiley Face

operation smiley face pinsWe are very, very proud and excited about featuring Operation Smiley Face as our latest ABM Customer Spotlight. When you hear the story behind this wonderful operation, and the incredible woman who is its driving force, you will understand why.

Operation Smiley Face was started by a women (whose name is not listed on her website other than as “Operation Smiley Face”) who is currently dealing with stage 4 Metastic Breast Cancer that had already spread to her lymph nodes and lungs when she was first diagnosed in August of 2009. This came on the heels of more than a decade of coping with her 1998 diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis.

You might read that paragraph and think that she has little to smile and be positive about. And to you or I that might be the case, but this inspiring woman has chosen to focus on the positives despite the cavalcade of negatives facing her every day.

Incredibly, she has somehow found a way to not only keep herself smiling, but to make other people – including and especially strangers she has never met – smiling too.

Continue reading