Button Maker Software
Asia Jordan
Find out why all-in-one button making kitsmade in America are superior to their 3-in-1button maker machine counterparts made in China. American-made button maker kits have higher quality manufacturing while being easier and more efficient to use.
It's just another way for us here at American Button Machines to say "Thank You" to our wonderful customers and show our appreciation for your purchases. Get the details on the American Button Machines Reward Program.
We added the button maker to our library this year and it has been a HUGE hit! It took a little playing around to figure out how to make it work as a passive makerspace activity, since the button machine is not terribly intuitive and each student needs instruction the first few times but eventually I figured out a process that works pretty well.
We got the Seeutek Button Maker Machine, the one that makes 2.25inch buttons. I opted to go with the larger button machine rather than the 1inch button machine (which is another popular choice) mostly just so the kids would have a little more space to create their designs with. The 2.25in buttons are a good size IMO.
Since the button maker is not very intuitive, nor something most of the kids have prior experience with, this station does require good instructions being available to the kids. I opted to put instructions out in two different ways.
Printed Instruction Poster: I also created a poster for instructions which is placed under the button maker. Keeping the instructions very simple and numbered has worked out well and most kids are able to figure out how to make the buttons just from using the printed instruction poster to guide them through.
Iink to my instruction poster (you can reuse)
When you but the button machine it will probably come with a little tool that helps you cut out paper circles the correct size for the button machine BUT I highly recommend you purchase a sturdier version like the one seen above (just make sure you get the right size). Its basically a giant hold puncher and it is awesome and both easy and safe to use. This makes it way easier for kids to cut out their own designs (sometimes kids print their own stuff to turn into buttons so having the hole puncher helps them quickly cut it down to the right size) and it makes it easier and quicker for you to cut out any templates you may provide for them. This is the link to the one I got.
Hello Kelsey,
I found this maker space button building fascinating. I think it enables the opportunity for students to stay engaged, get creative, and stay engaged. I really enjoyed how you decided to use a 2.5 inch button maker, as it does create a bigger product, but also allows more opportunity for students who are working on fine motor skills.
Thanks for the great idea,
Chloe
They do have cheaper options but what I love about these makers is that you set it up and wham bam make the buttons. The other versions you had to take off one part and attach another part for each part of the button! So keep that in mind!
Looking to do some advertising, campaigning, or just want to represent a cause or show off your design skills? Look no further than our two button maker systems! With two different versatile sizes, you can make a variety of pin-backed buttons to suit your needs. Please bring extra copies of your design to account for the learning curve of these tools.
For our professional machine, the average speed, depending on the person, is 200 to 400 buttons per hour. The button machine itself is very rugged and is made of solid metal. It features a patented short-stroke handle which allows for very little force to make a button. The handle also springs back into the upright position after each press; ready to make another shiny button with less effort. These features have been designed to ease the repetitive nature of button making and are not found in any other button machine on the market. It also has mounting capabilities and rubber feet on the base to keep it from slipping on a table.
The Professional kit includes everything you need to make 250 round pin-back button badges. All you need is your own paper. The button parts are made of metal (tin plated steel) and a round clear plastic sheet (mylar), which is provided, covers your paper graphic on the front face of the button. Pinback part sets include the following components:
This kit also comes with a handy circle cutter so you can cut your paper into perfect circles required for the machine. See the product picture above which indicates which type of cutter is included in the kit.
Our templates page contains files for graphic design programs such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Microsoft Word, and others. The graphic templates allow you to properly size and print your graphics using your own paper. Please note: We are not a graphic software company. All we provide are the files you can use for software you may have or can get elsewhere yourself. We also provide recommendations for FREE software you can use to design buttons with. We do not provide support for the software we recommend.
If you are not satisfied with this product within 30 days of your purchase date you can send it back for a refund. Products returned that show signs of use or have components that were used are subject to a 15% restocking fee. All shipping costs are the customer's responsibility.
At The Public Library of Mount Vernon and Knox County (OH), we have found that one of the most popular activities among our teens in our Teen MakerSpace is making buttons. We run into a lot of our teens around town that look like this:
But we started to notice that teens were just coming in, printing of a couple of pictures (and engaging in some serious copyright infringement while doing so), and leaving. We really wanted to find a way to encourage teens to get more creative in their button making. So we took the idea of challenge cards and created a variety of button making challenges.
A lot of our challenges are based on ideas we found in some of the books we have right there in our Maker Collection. We scoured through our collection and our resources to come up with creative and fun challenges. And we asked the teens in the Teen MakerSpace for their ideas as well.
I am obsessed with Sharpies. So discovering there were books about Sharpie art was a gift. We do a variety of simple Sharpie art activities. One of the simplest is to invite teens to color with Sharpies and turn their artwork into buttons.
We discovered that there is chalkboard paper, which can be used to make buttons. Instead of using regular chalk, our teens use chalk markers in combination with art books The Art of Chalk and The Complete Book of Chalk Lettering to create original chalk masterpieces which they then make into buttons.
We have a variety of coloring pages in our Teen MakerSpace and encourage the teens to color and then cut out a portion of their page to make their buttons. It asks them to look with a creative eye about editing an already laid out design and only use a portion of it.
We wanted to create some button challenges that invited teens to use our iPad lab to do some digital media creation and photo manipulation. There are a variety of apps that will let you use filters, add artwork, and add text to your pictures to create great photos. In addition, we have a green screen so we wanted to get our teens using that as well. When they create the picture they like, they can then size them and print them out and turn them into buttons.
Turn your favorite book quote into a button.
Star in a book cover for your fave book using a picture you take and photo apps.
Turn your photo into a mini comic book or graphic novel.
Turn your photo into a meme.
By creating a variety of challenges, we have found ways to get teens creating original artwork that they then turn into buttons. It has been fun to see what our teens create, and we have found ways to get teens to stay and talk a bit instead of just printing off a quick picture. I feel like our challenges are helping teens learn a little bit more about themselves, the creative process, and art in general. It has also challenged us to look more deeply at the books in our collection and find creative ways to incorporate art into the Teen MakerSpace.
These are amazing. What size buttons do you use for each of your challenges? Are you able to share your challenge cards? I would love to incorporate something like this into our Middle School Makerspace.
I think there should be a button maker in the rich content editor (RCE). I find myself creating courses that make thorough use of the pages feature of canvas (especially when designing fully online, asynchronous classes). I usually use images as buttons in order to make user friendly navigation options for these courses. This makes me wish that there was a way to more easily create and customize buttons within the RCE. I presently use "Da Button Factory" to create the buttons for my courses. This suggested button maker would have many (if not all) of the same features such as colour, font size, font, button size, fit to text, corner rounding...
These are just a few of my ideas. I definitely think that community polls could be set up to see what features would be more useful than others. While there is definitely a high ceiling for this kind of tool, I also think that this kind of tool would help more novice creators create more professional looking courses.
Thanks for sharing this idea. We'll move it forward as a request for a built-in button maker in the Rich Content Editor (RCE); should that development come to pass, members can then initiate new conversations around enhancements to that functionality, some of which are listed as "additional features" in the bullet points in the description.
I use Word or google docs to make attractive buttons to navigate to modules and assignments. I would like an easier way through Canvas directly It would take the tedious time away from going from word right to Canvas then setting the link.
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