Dr. Don's Buttons buttonsonline.com Click here to view a Site Map Directory of our web site and easily find whatever you're looking for   There are 7 reasons why you'll like our button parts better than what you get from Badge a Minit. Click here to discover what they are.   Another very exciting announcement we have to make is that we now produce rectangular buttons, here at Dr. Don's Buttons. If you or one of your customers would like rectangular buttons made (either pinbacks or magnet backs), click here to learn more about what we have to offer you. We also offer complete button production where we design, print, and produce buttons for you. The round sizes we currently produce are: 1-1/4", 1-1/2", 1-3/4", 2-1/4" and 3" We also produce rectangular buttons in 1-3/4" x 2-3/4" and 2" x 3" sizes.

Some great ideas on how to use buttons to assist in your fundraising If you happen to work for a school these days, I don't need to tell you how important fund raising has gotten to be. It's the lifeblood keeping alive many of the programs we took for granted back when I went to school. In this article I'm going to share some of the button-making ideas I have used for fund raising in a school environment. First, I'm going to discuss button ideas that might be more appropriate for elementary schools. Then I'll discuss ideas that would likely work better for high schools or colleges. One of the simplest and easiest ways that I know of to make money with buttons is by means of a concept that, for lack of a better name, I simply call "Color the Button Yourself". Here's how it works. With the Color the Button Yourself concept, you simply provide the children the opportunity to make buttons using designs that they themselves get to color. Anytime you have a gathering of children and their parents, this idea will work. It could be done at a fair, a school carnival, an ice cream social or anything of the sort. The key here is that the parents need to be there to supply that much needed commodity... the money. At the event simply set up a table. And the bigger, the better. You also want to have lots of colored pencils, markers, stickers, stars, glitter, and crayons on hand. Then, before the event, simply select a number of interesting pre-printed black and white designs (animals, super heros, etc.) that can easily be taken from a coloring book, a clip art collection, or whatever. Lay out as many of these designs as possible on a page and then use a copier to make lots of copies.You then use your circle cutter to cut the designs so they are ready to be quickly made into buttons. The final step before actually making the buttons is to allow the children to select which design they would like to work with. They then get to color that design which will then be made into a button. The parents pay a dollar or so to turn their child's masterpiece into a button. How much easier can fund raising be? It's likely you already have all the items you need for this type of project, such as markers, colored pencils, crayons, glitter, etc. and the parts you need to make each button only cost about 12 -15¢ each, depending on what size buttons you are going to make. Most parents don't think a thing about pulling a dollar or two out their pocket to allow their children to do this type of activity, and since making buttons can be so much fun, most parents will allow their child to make several. Cha-ching!! For more information about this concept, click here.   Another type of button that could be a great fundraiser for your school is one that will serve as a momento of an important school activity... graduation (kindergarten, eight grade, high school), a concert, a special field trip, or whatever. You could easily create a special button that serves as a momento of that activity. Back when I first started making buttons, I attended a convention and one of the best-selling buttons I created was one that simply had the name of the group (in curved lettering at the top), the date of the convention (in curved lettering at the bottom), and the name of the event (in straight text in the middle). The delegates who attended the convention eagerly parted with their money so they could take home a momento that marked their participation at the convention. Use your imagination here, but if the event is important enough for the parents to attend, it's likely something that they will willingly pay to have a momento of their child's involvement. Not long ago I produced buttons for a local high school's dance troop extravaganza. Four high schools in the area got together for a competion of sorts, and they asked me to produce two basic types of buttons that they could use for fund raising. One of the buttons simply had the name of the event, the date and the logo of the event placed in the center of the button. They also had me create a number of buttons that had dance "catch-phrases" on them. Things like "You need more than dance shoes to be a dancer", "Dance... poetry of the foot", "To dance, or not to dance... silly question!", and one of my favorites "Shut up and dance!". Buttons that have catch phrases that are popular with the particular group you are working with can be a great way to produce lots of additional revenue.   One of the most lucrative button-making ideas I've ever come up with is one that I call "Sports / Activity buttons" and these type of buttons are perfect for fundraising in a school environment. (You can see examples of what I'm talking about by clicking here). They are relatively easy to produce, the cost per button is low, and the profit that can be achieved with them can be enormous! Depending on what size you want to make these buttons, you can produce them for between 12¢ - 20¢ a piece. When I have produced these buttons for booster clubs, they usually end up selling them to the parents for $3.00 or $4.00 each. Now that's a remarkable amount of profit! The power behind the Sports / Activity button designs is that each button is personalized with a student's name, and if applicable, their jersey number. As parents, we are all proud of the accomplishments that our children make and if I happened to be watching my child participate in a school-sponsored football game or a musical program, and saw one of these buttons personalized with my child's name on it, how could I possibly resist reaching into my wallet so I could take home such a great momento? I couldn't, and that's the point! I won't re-tell the whole story of my own personal success using Sports / Activity buttons on this page, but if you haven't read about it yet, I encourage you to do so. (You can by clicking here). Let me suffice it to say that I have sold many thousands of dollars worth of these buttons, and you can, too. When you are doing Sports / Activity buttons for your school you can look at the children who participate in these activities as a renewable resource. That is to say that each year and with each new sport or school activity that takes place during the school year, you have a new opportuntity to make buttons for the children who participate. In my opinion, the best way to sell this type of button is to have them ready-made prior to the game or activity, and then display them on a table at that game or activity. Then, when the parents see them, they can simply reach in their purse or wallet, pull out their money, and take the buttons home with them. You may have a few buttons that will go unsold, but the profit you will make from the buttons you do sell, that it won't be enough to worry about. If you choose to do this, I recommend doing two buttons for each student. To encourage the parents to take both buttons, you might even offer a special price of let's say, one button for $3.00 or both buttons for $5.00. Everyone loves a bargain, so you'll likely find that by doing this, you will almost always sell both buttons. If you choose, you could also take orders for additional buttons so that if the child's grandparents, aunts and uncles would like to have one, they can too. If you aren't already doing Sports / Activity buttons, by all means, get started! You'll be amazed how much money you can earn when you are doing them.   Ok, let's look at another way thtat you can use buttons to earn money. Since we've been talking about sports, let's stay on the subject. Another way you can use buttons for fundraising is what I call "Game Day" buttons. Back in the stone age, when I went to high school, we always had what we called assemblys on the day of a big game. There, the cheerleaders and pom squad worked us all into a frenzy, and got us excited about that night's game. There would be banners posted all over campus proclaiming something like"Beat the Bengals" or "Crush Central". Our high school didn't do it back then, but if one of the clubs or campus organizations had been producing buttons with these slogans, they could easily have raised $500 or $600 a week, just making buttons that had these crazy little slogans on them. If this last idea sounds like a good idea to you, here's another idea that ties into it and would likely improve your sales significantly, without costing you another dime. When doing this type of button I recommend that you contact one of the pizza parlors in your area and ask if they would donate a pizza or two to the school. In return, you would have the game's announcer make an announcment during half-time, saying that the pizzas were donated by ...... Ok, so here's how all of this ties together. When you sell a button, you also give the buyer a ticket, and let them know that at half-time the announcer is going to select one number and the lucky person who holds that number will receive the FREE pizzas courtesy of .... Of course, the only people who can win are those who purchased one of the buttons. Make a big deal about the presentation. Perhaps you could have the cheerleaders escort the lucky winner to the middle of the field to receive their prize, and then escort them back into the stands. Or something of the sort. We all like winning and we all like being fussed over, so you can imagine that if you implement a plan like this, your buttons sales would really soar. And don't limit the buttons you make to just one saying per game. Have several different designs to choose from. What I discovered at the convention I mentioned earlier was that there were only so many attendees, but if I had lots of designs for them to choose from ( I did), each person could buy more than one pin. And because I implemented a special price ($1.50 each or 4 for $5.00) I usually sold at least 4 pins to most of the people who bought anything. I hope my article has given you some good ideas on how you can use buttons to do fundraising in a school environment. If you have any good fundraising ideas that use buttons and would like to share them with us, please send me an email.     If you have questions about button-making, button machines, or if you'd like to place an order by phone, just give us a call toll-free at: (800) 243-8293 or (623) 869-8233 Or if you'd like to place an order online, you can use our SECURE ONLINE ORDER PAGE by clicking here.   We Gladly Accept Purchase Orders from Schools, Hospitals, and Government Agencies     drdon@buttonsonline.com