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