Author Archives: Brighid Brown

How to Make a Custom DIY Pinback Badge Button

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[Note: If you’re thinking to yourself, “Hey! I’ve seen this post before!” you might be right. This post was originally published on December 3rd, 2008. We are cycling it back to the front of the blog so our new readers are made aware of it, as the content is no less relevant today. And besides, it’s always good to review…]

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There are a wide variety of uses for pinback buttons. From political campaigns to novelty items, pinback buttons are everywhere. With a professional button maker, like the ones we offer, the process for making a custom pinback button is both quick and easy.

The first step in the process is designing the button and getting the supplies ready. Designs can be printed off from the computer and, after being cut out with a circle cutter, are ready to be pressed in the button maker.

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How To Prepare Pinback Button Graphics and Use Adjustable Rotary Cutter

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[Note: If you’re thinking to yourself, “Hey! I’ve seen this post before!” you might be right. This post was originally published on December 12th, 2008. We are cycling it back to the front of the blog so our new readers are made aware of it, as the content is no less relevant today. And besides, it’s always good to review…]

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Pinback buttons have a wide array of uses and functions, from political campaign buttons to promotional tools for small businesses. Through the use of a button maker and button making supplies, it is easy for a small business or a school operating on a limited budget to quickly produce a number of buttons for sale as novelty items or as memorabilia.

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Creative March Madness Idea: Pinback Button Survivor Pool

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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!

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Circle Cutters Make the (Button) World Go Round

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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.

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Thinking Outside the Box: Selling Print-Ready Button Graphics

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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.

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ABM Customer Spotlight: Operation Smiley Face

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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.

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Customer Spotlight: Selvedge House

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Today’s customer spotlight shines on the fine folks over at Selvedge House, which is based in Brisbane, Australia. Selvedge House, as their website explains, provides a collection of hand crafted designer textiles, patterns and craft kits.

Recently, Danielle from Selvedge House sent us an email to tell us know how “brilliant” our button machine work and “how much fun” they have using it well set up at a weekend market stall. And in addition to fun, Danielle informs us that during that one weekend craft fair they pretty much made the cost of the machine back.

Here is a portion of Danielle’s email to us and some pictures from their weekend:

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ABM Template Tutorial Video Series: Copying an Individual Button Graphic Across a Single Page

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Over the last several weeks, we have posted four videos designed to assist you in creating circular button graphics ready to be printed and turned into whatever kind of button your heart desires.

You can find these button making tutorials at the following links:

What each video does is show you the step-by-step process for creating a machine-ready graphic. However, what the videos don’t show you is how to maximize the space of your paper by turning one graphic into an efficiently spaced page full of as many individual graphics as will fit.

But have no fear…we’ve got you covered.

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Helping Customers (even in Canada!) One Circle Cutter at a Time

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Nothing makes us happier than knowing that one of our products saved someone money, helped them create a memorable item, or generally just made their life a little bit better.

As we get ready to ramp back up again after another wonderful holiday season, we want to share with you a recent email that we received from one of our customers who reached out to us after being pleasantly surprised by how much time and money he saved with our Econo Circle Cutter.

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ABM Template Tutorial Video Series: Print Shop

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Welcome, loyal buttoneers (not to be confused with boutonnieres), to the fourth and final installment of our video template tutorial series, which has already shown you how to create button graphics using Photoshop, Corel Draw, and the Open Office free button making software.

Today, we venture into the digital jungles of Print Shop to go on a video safari that will show you how to create circular button graphics using this Windows-based software.

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