Thingamababy

Most parents don’t consider pinback buttons for their toddlers… and for good reason. Toddlers love to grab and manipulate everything within reach. Some lunatic put pointy metal needles on the back these buttons. What were they thinking?

But seriously, it’s with a hearty, "Be careful!" and "Don’t blame me if your kid gets injured!" that I relate the following story and provide link to a prolific button retailer.

This past summer I worked on the campaigns of two city council candidates, and designed one of their campaign buttons. My 2-year-old daughter quickly learned each candidate’s name and the idea that anytime I left the house I was wearing my "Alex" and "Mark" buttons. Within a few days she insisted that she wear Alex and Mark buttons, too.

I pinned them to her hat or jacket (an overcast summer day on the California coast can be 60 degrees). She never fidgeted with or tried to remove the buttons, although I know she might not act that way at 3, 4 or 5-years-old.

Just the same, I’m intrigued with the idea of using buttons as a fun clothing accessory, and also as an educational and motivational tool.

Wear a pin as a reward during potty training. Wear an alphabet pin to teach a different letter each day. Have your child assess the weather outside, then wear a pin that matches it. Buttons are like stickers, except you can use them again and again.

(The "A" button shown above is by the designer Pixelfinity. He has a button for every letter of the alphabet.)

If you have a tame level-headed kid and can supervise the wearing of a button, why not do it?

I found Prickie yesterday, an expansive seller of button badges, via the Random Good Stuff blog. They sell button designs from more than 700 artists. You could spend an entire workday browsing their catalog. *cough*

Thingamababy has diverse readership, so I’ll caution that many of Prickie’s designs are oriented toward adults and some are for a mature audience.

In that sense, you may wish to add interesting buttons to your shopping cart, then show your kid those buttons from within the cart.

Below are some of the buttons that interest me. Prickie’s interface uses Flash, so I can’t directly link to each button. If a button interests you, write down the designer’s name, then look up that designer in the "shop" area of their web site.

Update: Read my update after my daughter’s use of 24 pinback buttons.

Weather buttons

Other neat buttons

Thursday, February 8th, 2007Clothing