Making Buttons for a New Generation

A new craze is sweeping that nation, and that's trading custom pin buttons. A button can have any kind of image or message on it, or even just be a blank, perhaps having a special shape to it. Regardless, like many fads of old, people of many ages – but mostly the young – are trading buttons among themselves. This has spawned a whole industry of producing custom buttons for people, but you can bypass that whole money sink with a simple, cost-effective machine: a button pin maker.

Using a button die cutter and a button pin maker, button making is super easy and very fun. You can put just about whatever you want on your pin or pins and then both wear them and trade them away – after all, it isn't hard at all to make copies of a particular button. You can make custom photo buttons of yourself, friends, family, or just someone or something that you like a lot: a celebrity, a location, anything like that.

All you have to do is print out your materials, press them into the button, and then attach the button backs to secure everything. This all may sound a bit simplistic, and even childish, but consider that other fads in the past have been even more so. With button making, you are engaging in a creative act that then leads to socializing through the act of trading and admiring each others' buttons. Really, its a pretty awesome and ultimately harmless activity.

Many companies have gotten into button-making as a method of advertising as well as a way to just have fun and make a little extra money on the side while also repping themselves. Clever or creative buttons are not uncommon at lots of online stores that sell merchandise along with their main product. Just use your search engine to start poking around and you can see how button-making technology has been leveraged to create a whole new space for merchandising and marketing.

Of course, that's not totally in the spirit of button-making. No, the design and making of buttons is intended to lead to trading, socialization, and the creation of a community of button crafters, admirers, and wearers. You can stand outside that community and just churn out buttons for cash, but that'll never really lead to anything more than a few wasted buttons. No, the best thing for you is get in on the game and really learn to enjoy a good button.