How to make badge pins - Selling on Etsy
Firstly thank you very much for liking and supporting Rundeavour. It has been a pleasure providing thoughtful gifts and connecting runners around the world, and I'm very excited about the future.
What would you like to send as a gift? What would you put on a badge?
In this post, I will share how I go about making the badge pins at rundeavour.com.
See below for a video making the badge pins.
How to make badge pins and sell them on online
If you are looking at ways to make extra income, designing your gifts and selling badges on Etsy or Shopify is a worthwhile starting point.
You will need:
- A badge maker.
- Design tools - software or online
- A printer.
- A circle cutter - scissors not recommended but acceptable.
- A good sense of humour - trust me; things will go wrong!
There are three main steps to making your badges as follows:
1: Create your designs
One of the benefits of making the badge pins yourself is that you can print anything off and put it on a badge! You will probably want to make your design as essential and minimalist as possible, and this helps in several ways;
- Aesthetic - Minimalist designs tend to be more pleasing to the eye.
- Reduces costs - Reducing the use of printing ink, paper and overall long term maintenance of the printer
- Its faster - Less time printing and more time badge making!
Ideas for what designs to chose;
I have serviced over 1,000 customers on Etsy, and I would strongly recommend to pick a niche and stay as specific to that niche as possible. Such as gifts for runners.
How to design your badges
I use Canva, which is a free online design tool. there is a paid version but the free version is sufficient for making your own designs.
How to print your designs
Use high-quality paper, not photographic paper, for the best results.
Manufacture your pins
Cut out your designs
Now that you've created your beautiful minimalist design, you need to make sure that it is cut out to the right size to fit your badge pin maker.
Also, you'll need a circle of plastic which will form a protective layer on the top of your design.
Make your badges
There are two parts to the badge maker called 'dies' The first die is used to press the badge together, the second die attaches a pin or safety clip to the badge.
- Put the aluminium badge front in the first die, then your design, followed by the transparent plastic layer.
- Push down firmly with the lever, which will compress the parts neatly together.
- Place the pin back safety clip of the badge in the second die, and transfer the front, being careful to line up the back straight.
How to make badge pins video
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DSBgR8-REZ0" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I thought it was about time I made a video to show you how I go about making the badge pins. It's my first video so I will hopefully be making some more of these to improve, let me know what you think.
In this video, I focus on my Etsy store https://rundeavour.etsy.com I talk about how I got started with the ever punny "If I collapse please can you pause my watch!" badge. I make a gift set ready for dispatch.
