DIY Cool: Homemade Buttons and Pins

When I wasn’t trying to create the perfect mix tape using criteria that would make High Fidelity‘s Rob Gordon approve, I collected buttons and pins when I was in high school. Of course, every now and then I’d get a “real” pin via one of the following means:

Purchasing a shiny new one at Hot Topic (e.g., a monkey declaring I Fling Poo)
Collecting my friends’ work nametags after they quit their McJobs
Discovering some gems at the Sunday flea market (e.g., I caught a friend’s eye during college orientation when I wore my yard-sale-find Boy George pin. You never know what fun thing about you might win you a friend!)
Finding some left over from childhood (e.g., the no-TV pin, which I got in second or third grade for No TV Week. I wore it high school and a girl I barely knew insisted that I give it to her because “I actually don’t watch TV.” NO ONE CARES BETCH BYE)
Receiving them as a gift (e.g., Hooray I’m 2! accompanied the birthday card my aforementioned Boy-George-appreciating friend gave me for my 19th birthday)

Mostly, though, I made the buttons and pins myself. I decoupaged over promotional pins and assembled my own using a pog/milkcap maker and adhesive pin backs. While my pins’ design aesthetic and sense of humor are dated, consider them time capsule pieces represented of a weird, angsty, artistic teen in the early 2000s.

Have you made your own pins? Share pics and your methodology in the comments!