Thingamababy

A couple months ago I wrote about pinback buttons from Prickie.com and wondered if they would be a hit with my almost-3-year-old daughter. Well, I came into 24 such buttons via a contest on Random Good Stuff, so here is an update.

I spent a couple hours looking through every button on Prickie’s site, generating a favorite list of 63 buttons. It’s a bit of a task because they have some 12,000 designs and most are not oriented toward young children, and a few would make my mother blush and/or faint.

I sat with my daughter and browsed the buttons in our shopping cart, weeding out designs she didn’t like until we had 24.

When the buttons arrived, their smallness and vibrancy struck me. I must have spent the first five minutes turning them over in my hand, marveling. Each button has a 1" diameter, the size of a quarter, but with rounded edges they seem a little smaller—that’s a good thing because small is cool, big is dorky.

Also, I believe the size is responsible for my daughter not fidgeting while wearing one. I had been worried she might remove it and prick her finger. A bigger button would be more intrusive, making her more physically aware of it throughout the day. Your mileage may vary, so be damned careful, but my kid is fine.

I had postulated that weather-themed buttons would be fun—let me daughter assess the weather and choose the right button. In practice, she discards that idea and wants to pick any button that strikes her fancy.

It turns out that these things are a shared experience. After my daughter chooses a button to wear for the day, and I stick it on her, she proceeds to tell me which button I must wear. Here we are in April and every other day I’m sporting Santa Claus.

Yesterday, we discovered after doing a load of laundry that a button had gone through the wash. Its pin assembly was pushed in a little—not really a problem, but still fixable by bending it back. More importantly, the pin artwork was intact. No water seeped inside. No apparent damage. Again, your mileage may vary, but I am impressed with these plucky little buttons.

Upon visiting Prickie’s web site again, I looked through and found a host of new artists. Below are a few more kid-friendly designs.

To purchase, you’d need to write down an artist’s name, then browse Prickie’s Flash-based site and navigate alphabetically to the artist of choice. See the bottom of my previous article for 63 additional designs.

Thursday, April 12th, 2007Clothing