Safeguard Your Special Badge with Safety Pins!

So ...

It's been on my to-do list to make a special post regarding "special button security".

If you're anything like me, you may have several buttons or pins on your jacket or bag or whatnot. It's never a good feeling to one day notice that neat little piece just disappeared! These are buttons with a single pinning mechanism, and perhaps likely, they're going to pop off at some point when you snag yourself in a doorway or on a bike or doing any day to day activities. This has been the story of special stuff I stick on jackets or cool jewelry I've ever had. One day, they fall off and that becomes the story of them, and it stinks.

In the particular case of the badges I'm selling, some of them are 7-10 dollars a piece, because I put a lot of work and care and decision making time into them. Most of them are little art pieces to me. Nobody wants to spend 10 dollars on something or more whether it's a button or jewelry and lose it to the elements. Now, what I have here is a suggestion to all you fine folks picking up one of my buttons, or anybody's buttons! I will try my best through pictures to explain how with a simple safety pin you may never lose another button again!

So pictured here is a real custom designed X Files badge. Lots of cuts and different colored paper layers. Do I want to put this on my jacket lapel and have it pop off when I bump into my pal while we're busting moves on a dance floor? Heck no.

Here we go. Badge is on the lapel of a jacket. This technique would apply to any piece of clothing or bag however you decide you wear your button. Here is your safety pin.

Pin your button to whatever you would like. If you then look at the back of the button you will see that there is a part of the pinning mechanism that has a little loop.

Now direct yourself to the inside of the apparel or bag, the other side of the fabric. You will see your pin poked through.

Take the safety pin and shove it through the side that corresponds with that little loop on the button. The safety pin intersects with the Button's pin.

The safety pin pokes through the inside of the fabric and through the loop on the back of the button and then back through to the other side of the fabric.

Here we are! This is what the safety pin should look like before you close it up. Your button is safe in it's stabby arms.

And now, pin in place and closed, you can rest assure no amount of tugging short of your lapel being torn right off by some twat on a roller coaster is going to rob you of your sick button you just paid 8 dollar for.


I hope these tips are helpful, and that the idea helps you all feel good when spending a little more on one of my pieces than the average impulse button buy in the record store checkout line!


And while on that note here are some documentary pictures of the making of this X Files badge!

Button image harvested out of a great section of a 1994 issue of Scarlet Street "The Magazine of Mystery and Horror". A collector might gasp "Why the hell are you cutting that up?!" and you know... a few years ago, I might have too. But the thing is, there are a lot of materials I will NOT cut up. I am a collector of too many things and I weigh the ideas at hand. This magazine whether or not it has any trade show value could sit on my shelf, or in an archival slip until the next generation wants to read analogue style about The X Files, or I can take it and make some really neat one of a kind pieces in tribute to my love of X Files. Completely nerdy, I sometimes ask myself if the average joe spends any time thinking about stuff like this.

So I might save the interviews or something, but the image quality in Magazines is way crisper and cooler than what even laser printers can put out a lot of the time. And maybe you could think of it as being slightly more authentic. I sometimes factor these things in when I put a price on a button.

There she blows, all cut out and punched to just the right size. Yellow vinyl letters and one banging silver foil "X". The rest, the triangles, cut out with an xacto knife. Cut another "x" in there, pick and choose the composition, the colors, pulling from my love of pastels and Suprematist design.

Colored layers taped to the back. The thickness of the image can have a long-term effect on a button maker. I'm crossing my fingers I don't suffer big time down the road for multi-layer pieces, but it's a chance I'm willing to take!

And presto. My little X Files collage goes in there, plastic over top, press it out and now it's a button!


Recent thanks to online friends and supporters Chris Luckey, Cheyla Wagner, & Leia Hohenfeld! And many thanks as well to anybody who came out to the Cleveland Flea or Lakewood Music Festival this past month and picked up any buttons!

Do you have any requests? Are you interested in any custom badges for your band or company, or a gift? Feel free to fire them at me!  memorabiliaproductions@gmail.com

I Miss You Robin Williams

It's been a very sad week.

Monday morning, one of my lifelong heroes was found dead. Robin Williams committed suicide. I was at first unable to believe it. As untouchable as people in films, on tv, on records seem to be in real time, it's pretty much just as unreal if they die. I'm trying to keep myself comforted by that notion. It doesn't really work though. Because despite how much Robin meant to me and countless others, he was still very much a real person, with real problems, a family, children and friends who loved him very much. And you can't not think about it.

Having been a kid through all of the 90s I feel really like I was graced with some of the greatest family films ever made. Maybe every kid who was allowed to watch movies growing up feels this, but I feel like in particular I owe a debt of gratitude to Robin Williams. I feel like we all do. He lent his humor not just to adults, but to children and people everywhere. It was this universal language he spoke. To my family, he was like another uncle, a cousin. He played babysitter to my sister and I. He got us through some of the toughest times of our lives with laughter and wisdom. He gave all people another perspective.

I'll repeat what I said the morning after I learned the news. I can't find a better way to say it again.

"Daniel Hillard, Batty, Genie, Mr. Keating, Armand Goldman, Peter Banning, Garp, Chris Collins, Leslie Zevo, Andrew Martin, John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, Patch Adams, Robin Williams, these people changed my life. Suicide, case by case will never be fully understood. I do not understand, I don't want to accept it. But I do know everyone has a dark place and not one they always share with others. I can accept that. This man leaves behind his family, and I feel like we're all a part of that family. I know I'm not feeling this alone.

All of those people I mentioned above, he was all of those people. And they are all a part of me. Robin Williams, I will always remember like this. They will always be there, and so will he. My second dad, my friend, you will always be with me. I will see you laughing."

In the back of my notebook I keep all kinds of scribbles, lists, ideas. A "Robin Williams" or "TOYS" series was first on my list of buttons I wanted to make as a set actually. "TOYS" is certainly on my top 5 films of all time list, if not maybe my absolute favorite. Between the cast and crew and direction, the whole package just melts my soul. If you have never seen it, or have not seen it since 1992, I definitely recommend giving it a viewing. It's not hard for me to watch this movie and see in many ways how it has shaped me.

I don't like that it is now 4 days later after his passing that I am making some Robin Williams themed buttons. But either way, I am honored to, and excited to. I am excited to sit at my desk and play with prints of this person that I adore sooo much, and create these little badges of honor that I can share with others who maybe feel like I do. I kind of want to cry looking at them, but actually I just can't stop smiling.

I just created these today. They all have a lot of love put into them. It's just the beginning. I will post some soon to my etsy page for those of you far away who may like a button or two!

www.etsy.com/shop/memorabilia1

It's so sad that a person so lovely and so loving could be hurting so badly. I hope when people think of him they don't see him swallowed up in darkness. I hope they see the faces on these buttons, smiling, laughing, being silly, giving the world all of these characters to help enrich everyone's life! This is the Robin I will always think of.

I dj a radio show at local Cleveland State University WCSB, called "Pleasure Leftists". It's on Thursdays 9am-11am. This week I dedicated my show to Robin Williams. It's filled with clips from all of my favorite movies of his. If you would like to listen, the broadcast will be on archive on the WCSB website from now until next Thursday morning 8-21. I will probably put it up for download at some point, but until then, please follow this link to enjoy!!

"Pleasure Leftists" radio program "Robin Williams"

Let us all celebrate this rare individual!!