To begin the year, I invested in a button machine for making 1-inch pinback buttons. These are the popular little buttons that you'll find people wearing now. JC Penney used the 1-inch buttons as part of their Christmas promotion. Holiday designs were on the front and promotional codes were on the back. One of my promotional codes got me a $5 gift card at Starbucks!
What are we going to do with our new piece of equipment? There are a lot of people on Etsy right now making buttons - some with cute or snarky sayings and others with images of popular movie characters or symbols.
If you've been following me for any length of time, you know that I'm not going to go in a "normal" direction. The first thing I did was to tat some small motifs and make them into buttons. I quickly learned that I have to use very small thread and to be careful to use thin paper as the background. The effect of having the tatting encased under the mylar cover is pretty cool. It's hard to capture it in a photo.
The next step will be to do some unique Native American designs for our shop. I think we could do designs similar to the ones my hubby has etched on stone and cut out of vinyl. We're talking about some other options for when we sell at the powwows.
Yes, we might have more sales by doing something from the latest movie or TV show. Our son has a friend who has made a great business off the popularity of Harry Potter. That's great for her, but I don't want to follow the fads or use other people's work. We may not have enough sales to quit our day jobs, but we are proud of our work and what we have to offer the world.
1 mad comments:
The lace under the mylar does look really cool.
A button machine is on my list of things to try next, as well! I saw one at the sewing expo last year and fell in love. Now I just have to feel comfortable spending the $.
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