My blog has moved!
You should be automatically redirected in 6 seconds. If not, visit
http://buttonmakers.net/blog
and update your bookmarks.
ButtonMakers.net sponsored the Let Live Conference in Portland this year. An amazing time was had by all.
Photoshop, use the Image -> Image Rotation -> Flip Horizontal option as shown in the image to the left. If you're not familiar with laying out pages on one Layer this way, you might want to download our templates and check out the tutorial on using Patterns.
In OpenOffice you can flip your image by right clicking or CTRL-clicking on it and selecting Flip -> Horizontally. In OpenOffice you have to remember to flip your graphic before laying out the whole page.
This ever happen to you? You're all done making your batch of collet buttons, dutifully inserting that copper lockpin one by one by one. The next thing you know your thumb and forefinger are all black! WTH?!?, you may ask yourself.
These new sets are made with collets. The adhesive magnet goes inside the button after it's pressed. It sticks to the inside of the shell and lays flat with the collet.
Just look at the difference. Now that's a sexy magnet if I ever saw one.
These are cool because they use the really strong ceramic magnets. They're made by placing the magnet inside the collet in the model 875 button machine when pressing the button, so there are no extra steps and no adhesives! And they're really really strong. Yippee!!
3. Launch GIMP. GIMP looks a little different from most application windows you might be used to. Each component of Gimp is it's own window with it's own menu bar at the top. There is not one single program window as you might normally see. Take a moment to get a feel for this. If you're a computer novice, you might have trouble with everything 'disappearing' because you clicked outside one of the Gimp element windows. If this is happening to you, just close all other applications before starting Gimp.
4. Click on "File" at the top of the tools dialog and select "Open." In the dialog box that appears navigate to the location on your hard drive where you saved your template file. Once you locate the template file you downloaded earlier, click on it and then click "Open".
5. When you successfully open the template file, you will see a white "canvas" area with two black circles. The outer one is your "cut line" and the inner one is the "face line". You should keep your important design elements inside the inner circle.
You should now be able to see the separate components of the file. You can make a new layer by clicking the sheet of paper icon on the bottom left of the dialog. You can turn the layers on and off using the eyeball icon next to them. You can drag them to the little trash can icon on the bottom right of the dialog if you want to delete a layer. You can drag the layers up or down to change how they are arranged on your canvas. For example, you could make your designs on a new layer, but you would need to place it underneath the face line layer, so you can see the line you need to stay within.
7. Design your graphic. For this example, I am dropping a photo into the layout and adding some text on top. So my next step is to open the photo.
8. Resize the photo. Now that I have my photo open, I need to scale it down. Usually photos are very high resolution so they can be printed very large. Buttons are relatively small and don't require as much resolution. If I were to paste this image on to my button template without scaling it first, it would be enormous and difficult to work with.
printable area on a 1 inch button is only 300x300 pixels. For some safety and wiggle room, I decide to scale my photo down to 400 pixels on the short side - making my image 400x600 pixels.
9. Now that the photo is a manageable size, I can paste it into the button layout. But first we have to add a new layer to the button template. Click on the button template to bring it to the foreground. Then click on the piece of paper icon at the bottom left of the layers dialog.
the button layout window click on the new the new layer in the "layers" dialog to select it. Then click on "Edit" and select "Paste".
12. Save your work. Click "File" and select "Save As" select a location on your hard drive and give the file a new name. It's always a good idea to keep your files in their layered state in case you want to make changes later.
13. Get rid of extraneous layers and prepare for printing. You don't want the face line to print, so you once you have a version with the face line in tact saved, you can go ahead and drag that layer to the small trash can icon at the bottom of the layers dialog. We then need to merge the remaining layers. Click on the top layer to select it. Then click "Layer" and select "Merge Down." Repeat the merging until you have only one layer total.
14. Get rid of excess image. In my case, some of the image goes outside my circular template lines. This really isn't a problem except for the wasted ink that will occur when it goes to print. So I'm going to go ahead and turn the corners white. To do this, I select the "Ellipse Select" tool (the oval shaped tool). Click on the top left corner of the canvas, then hold down your shift key (to maintain a perfect circle) and drag to the bottom right corner. This should make a perfect circular selection. Then we need to invert it. Click "Select" on the tool bar and select "Invert"
15. Crop the image to size. In this case, there is some extra image that flows over my canvas area. This will show up when I paste it onto a bigger canvas, so I have to crop it out. Select the crop tool (the knife icon). Click and drag from the top right corner of the canvas to the bottom left. Then double click in the middle.
16. Click on "File" and select "New". When the Create New Image dialog box comes up, change "pixels" to "inches" using the drop down menu. Enter 8.5 in the width field and 11 in the height. This will open a new, blank 8.5 x 11 page on which we will paste our button graphics and print.
17. Click the button layout window to bring it forward. Then click on "Edit" and select "Copy". Click on the page window to bring it forward and select "Edit" then "Paste". Select the Move tool and drag the pasted image to the top right corner. Then select "Edit" - "Paste" (or CTRL-V on your keyboard) again. It will paste the second image directly on top of the one you just pasted. With the move tool, click on the button graphic and drag it down. Keep pasting and dragging until you've filled the page with button graphics.
18. Merge all of the layers together. Select "Layer" then "Merge Down." Repeat this step until you have no more layers. Then select "File" - "Save As". Select JPEG from the drop down menu and change the file name to something you can remember. Make sure to add the .jpg file extension to the end.
The only piece of equipment I needed to buy was a portable photo printer. I settled on a Canon Selphy 740. I choose the Selphy because it's small, portable, and fast. It's not the battery operated model, but I need power for my lighting setup anyway. I went with Canon because I can connect my camera directly to the printer without going through a laptop. However, while on the job, I quickly discovered that you cannot shoot while the printer is printing from the camera! Yeah, uh, probably should have tested that one ahead of time! It was tough explaining to a bunch of exuberant party-goers "Sorry! I can't take your photo for another minute and a half..."
Miraculously, I was able to get all of it onto the cart and/or my person for carrying. I didn't have any time to shoot a proper photo of my setup, but I managed to snag a couple of snaps during a slower moment - which was rare!
many buttons, I slipped him a 20 at the end of the night!! I needed his help for sure.
Check out the photos from this awesome button party hosted by Jody Rodgers and Joann Edmonds-Rodgers, the duo behind Buttons4Obama.com.
Jody owns a model 125 1-1/4 inch button maker. For this event he also rented a second 125 and a graphic punch, and stocked up on parts. (Sorry out-of-towners, rentals are only available in Seattle.)
The buttons they make are sent off to national campaign headquarters to be distributed during caucuses and primaries. They've made thousands of buttons so far and their not stopping there!
As a nice little perk to my wedding packages I offer an engagement shoot and the most adorable little photo magnets you've ever seen in your life!!
This one is the simplest idea of them all and is a great way to help your wedding guests mingle and get to know one another.
Step 1: Insert the shell, smooth side up, into the take up die (the one thats on the left when the die table is perpendicular to the base plate.)
Step 5: Insert the collet, sharp side up, into the crimp die.
Step 7: Press your magnet as usual. Pull the handle all the way down toward you, rotate the die table around and pull the handle all the way down toward you a second time. Just like normal.
Step 8: Remove your finished magnet from the machine and marvel at how smooth and professional it looks and how easy it was to make. :)
For all of the fabric pictured here, fuzzy leopard print excluded, I had to use 2 layers of fabric to get the buttons to crimp properly. The fuzzy leopard print was thick enough to work flawlessly every time. I had about a 10% failure rate with all the other fabrics, even with the multiple layers. By failure, I mean that the fabric didn't crimp at all or tore in the machine.
A lot of the times with the double layer standard cotton fabrics, I had small area of fabric that was pinched in between the shell and the backing, but folded backwards, and didn't crimp all the way under the backing. I refer to this problem as escaped edges. I did not consider buttons with escaped edges as failures. I just trimmed them down and called it good. It's such a tiny little piece that is hardly noticeable at all on the back of the button. If escaped edges is a big problem for you, I would recommend having your machine adjusted for fabric. Sometimes if you cut the escaped edge too close to the button, it becomes un-pinched and therefore ruins the button. So be careful when trimming escaped edges!
I pressed out 58 buttons in all, had 5 that were completely unusable, 12 with escaped edges that I trimmed off and used anyway, and 41 totally perfect fabric buttons. I noticed that my model 225 had a better success rate than my other machines. It didn't seem to matter if I used a fabric or a paper base layer. It really depends on the fabric you're using and how smooth the inside of the dies on your particular machine are. Sometimes, like with the fuzzy leopard print, you just find the magical combination and it works every time. Other times, like with the cotton pink skull fabric, it just doesn't work as consistently and you have to keep trying.
