Another highly profitable type of button you can produce are buttons for high school reunions. (You can see a sample of one we produced above and yes, that was me... way back when).
We used to do lots of high school reunion buttons and here's how we went about creating them:
First of all, the reunion company we worked with would provide a list with all the names of those who would be attending. They would also provided us with a copy of the yearbook for that particular class.
We then took the yearbook to a copy shop and made photocopies of all the pages that contained the senior portraits.
(If you plan to make this type of button, make sure the photocopies are the right size for your buttons. If they are too big, they won't fit; if they are too small, the photograph will get lost on the button. For best results, use a photocopy machine that can reduce and enlarge).
After I photocopyed the yearbook, I then created a template of the button design on my computer.
I put the school's name in curved lettering at the top, the year they graduated as"class of 199...", in curved lettering at the bottom, and then I saved the design to disk.
Next, I printed each student's name (in straight text) on a copy of the template I just created.
If the button is for a man, or an unmarried woman, I put their first and last name (maiden name) on the first line.
If the button was for a married woman, I put the married name on the second line. (I did this because the people in her class will remember her by her maiden name. Having her married name on the second line also lets everyone know she is... or was... married).
I then printed all the designs.
The next step in the process was to spell check each name on the printed sheets.
You'll find it a lot easier to do this before your designs have been cut from the sheets since the designs will still be in the same order you typed them from your list.
If you try and spell check the names after they have been cut from the printed sheets it will be much tougher.
Whenever I made a spelling error, I just marked the correction on the printout and still cut it out. I then took all the corrections back to my computer and made the necessary changes.
When all the printouts were finished, I cut out the senior portrait (from the photo copy page) for each person who would be attending the reunion.
(When doing this, be sure and do it one photo at a time and carefully match the photo to the design that has that person's name on it. If you don't, you could easily end up placing a photo with the wrong name).
Next, I placed a small amount of glue from a glue stick on back of the photo and placed the photo above their name on the printed design.
When all the designs were ready, I made all the buttons with our 3" button machine.
But the work doesn't end there.
Now I had to go back and make certain we had the right photograph with the right name, and that we had a button for each student who would be attending.
There is a fair amount of labor involved in doing this type of button, but there can also be a lot of profit potential!
If you don't
already own a 3" button machine, check out our Model 300
SX. It's fast, easy to use and an outstanding job making 3" photo buttons.
To place an order
for a button machine,
or for button-making supplies, click here.
