Pressed Flower Badge Making Demo Video

BadgeMaking.ie recently provided badge making as an activity for the visitors to a press event at River Island. The event involved guests making their own 58mm badges using pressed flowers. 

We decided to make demo video showing how the process works. Badge making is an ideal activity for events such as weddings. We can provide badge making at your event in Ireland using flowers or other methods such as drawing, stamps, stencils, stickers or any other way of putting something onto paper. The video is below.

More images from the event at River Island

IWFL Badge - 1916

This badge, produced by the Irish Women's Franchise League, was worn by founder member Francis Sheehy Skeffington when he was executed at Portobello Barracks on 26th April 1916. The badge was returned to his wife Hanna Sheehy Skeffington after his death.

Francis Sheehy Skeffington was a supporter of home rule and was not one of the rebels participating in the rising. Francis held a meeting in an attempt to form a citizens' militia to prevent the looting that was going on in Dublin city. On his way home he was followed by a crowd of people who taunted him. They were intercepted by soldiers of the 11th East Surrey Regiment.  A soldier stopped the group and arrested Sheehy-Skeffington after he admitted to sympathy for the insurgents' cause.

The execution without trial of Sheehy-Skeffington along with two journalists is considered a war crime.

BadgeMaking.ie Now on Instagram

Follow us @badgemaking_ie to see what we're up to.

BadgeMaking with Pressed Flowers

BadgeMaking.ie was invited by River Island to facilitate badge making with pressed flowers at their High Summer press event.  Grafton Street. Flowers were used to tie in with the use of floral print in their new clothing lines. It was a great day and some lovely badges were made by the bloggers and members of the press.

Pressed Flowers and Badge Making Materials

Two badges using real pressed flowers.

The 58mm badge machine and materials

Thanks to River Island for having us. If you're interested in having badge making at your own event please get in touch. Pressed flower badges would work well for weddings and there are lots of other ways to hand make your badge - basically anything you can do on paper can become a badge. Below is a video showing how the process works

You can find more info on badge events here.

How Many Times a Day Do You Open the Fridge?

According to a survey conducted by LG a third of families questioned said that their fridge door is opened between 20 and 50 times each day*. That makes the fridge door a great place to remind people of your message or organisation. 

Magnets are a great promotional item because once they are in place they'll never get lost and will be seen many times each day. 

We offer magnets in two sizes: 38mm and 58mm. Here is our full price list for magnet and badge printing.

*Source: http://www.gizmag.com/lg-door-in-door-super-capacity-fridge/23363/

How Paypal Invoices Work

The Customer's Experience

We use Paypal as our method of accepting credit card payments. Customers often think that this requires a Paypal account but this is not the case.

When a customer orders badges they will receive an email with a link to a secure payment page for your order. This payment page can then be used to make a one off payment by credit or debit card as you would with any once off online payment. No account is needed. The images below show how a Paypal invoice works.

When a Paypal Invoice is sent the customer receives an email that looks like this 

Clicking the link in the email brings you to your secure payment page.

The Experience for The Business Owner

Paypal invoices are a great way for a small business to collect payments without requiring any additional equipment or standing charges. An email is received by the business owner with a notification as soon as payment is made. Any unpaid invoices appear at the top of the business owners account so it’s easy to keep track of an unpaid invoices and there is a mechanism to send a reminder if needed.

Paypal also allows for partial payment of invoices so the same invoice can be used to accept a deposit and final payment for larger orders which is very handy.

DIY Tip: How to Remove a Stuck Item

I always have a rubber dart from a toy gun in my toolbox. They come in handy for removing stuck badge making components from my badge machines.

Richard Herring's Fundraising Badges

The comedian Richard Herring created these great "I paid a pound (plus p&p)" badges to raise funds for his online comedy show Richard Herring's Meaning of Life. In his own words "you can contribute to make our loss making comedy slightly less loss making"

Badges are a good way of fundraising.  You can hear Richard talking about his unique approach in the video below. We didn't make these badges but we're fans and you can buy one of his badges here.

Social Media Reviews

Reviews are very important to a small business like this one. As well as helping consumers make an informed choice they also help Google to identify and rank good businesses. This means reviews helps us to appear higher in Google searches so that we can continue to grow and improve.

We currently collect reviews through Google+ and Facebook. A review can be just one or two lines. It only takes a moment and is always appreciated. The images below show how easy it is to leave a review.

Leaving a Review on Google+

You don't need to have Google+ account to leave a review. If you have a Gmail account,  use Google docs, upload videos to youtube, or use any other Google service you will already have Google account that you can use to leave a review.

Reviews only appear on Google+ after they are approved and found to be compliant with Google's review content policies. The policies on reviews are mostly common sense. The most important thing to bear in mind is that links are not permitted in reviews.

You can visit the BadgeMaking.ie Google+ page here or by clicking on the social media icons at the bottom of every page of this website.

The image below show the Google+ page. In order to leave a review click on the pencil icon which has been highlighted here. Then leave a star rating and let people know what you thought of the service. 

The BadgeMaking.ie Google+ with the "leave review" pencil icon highlighted

Leaving a Review on Facebook

You can visit our Facebook pages and leave a review here. The image below shows the review page with the area where you can leave a review highlighted. To leave a review on Facebook an account is needed. 

Facebook Review Page

The reviews page on Facebook page can be tricky to find without the direct link. The reviews section is located at the very bottom of the left hand column. It should not be confused with the "customer posts" section.

You can leave a review by clicking on the appropriate star rating (we hope it's five) under the words "Tell people what you think". This is shown in the image below.

How to leave a review on the BadgeMaking.ie Facebook page.

It's as easy as that to leave a review! 

If for you don't have a Google or Facebook account and can't leave a review on either of these social networks you can can always send us a quick testimonial by email and we will feature it on the website with a link back to your own site. 

Feedback on our badges, magnets and service is always appreciated.

The Origin of the "Peace" Badge

You might know the symbol above as the “Peace” symbol but it was specifically designed for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1958 by designer Gerald Holtom.

Holtom who been a conscientious objector during the Second World War said that the symbol was made up of the semaphore flag signals the letters "N" and "D" (Nuclear Disarmament”). These were enclosed in a circle representing the world.

He later wrote in a letter to Hugh Brock, editor of Peace News: “I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya’s peasant before the firing squad. I formalized the drawing into a line and put a circle round it.” However he may have misremembered the painting because as seen below the figure has his hands raised above his head.

Francisco Goya, The Third of May, 1808 in Madrid, 1808, 1814-15,

In Holtom’s personal notes the designer wrote how he first turned the design into a badge. "I made a drawing of it on a small piece of paper the size of a sixpence and pinned it on to the lapel of my jacket”. The first proper badges were made by Eric Austin of Kensington CND using clay.  They were distributed with a note claiming that, in the event of a nuclear war, the fired pottery badges would be among the artifacts to survive a nuclear blast.

An original CND ceramic badge via http://www.cnduk.org/about/item/435-the-cnd-symbol

Although it was specifically designed for the CND copyright over the symbol was never enforced. It was available to be freely used by anyone leading to it's adoption internationally as a general symbol of peace. Recently, in November 2015, the symbol was modified by the French illustrator Jean Jullien in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Paris. Like Haltom before him Julien made his symbol free for all to use.

Peace for Paris Badge

Read more about the CND and their symbol
 

Rising Fatigue

We're proud to be Irish but this badge sums up how we are starting to feel...

I Hate Elvis

Elvis Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker was one of the first people in music to realise the potential for making money by selling merchandise like badges.

By the end of 1956 Presley merchandise had brought in $22,000,000. The Colonel even came up with a way to make money out of people who didn't approve of Elvis's swinging pelvis by selling these "I hate Elvis" badges!

5 Star Review on Google+

We've just had our first review on Google+ and it's 5 out of 5. We recently shipped off some badges for Denise and she was kind enough to leave a review.

Really delighted with the 600 badges we got from BadgeMaking.ie
From the point of inquiry, to design, to the speed of delivery - it was a hassle free experience. Good quality and value for money.

Follow us on Google+ and if we've made badges for you before then please leave a quick review.

Badge Making Event Video

A video of one of our Badge to the Bone events where we offer the opportunity to design and make your own badges. 

It's great fun for all ages.

38mm Magnets

A new batch of magnets to send out as samples. Magnets are a good promotional gift item or wedding favour. Once they're on the fridge they won't be going anywhere and ensure you will be remembered.

A full price list for badge and magnet printing can be viewed here.

Hand Made Badges

Hand made badges from a Badge to the Bone stall at a corporate family event.

Not Just Badges

We now provide 38mm diameter magnets as well as badges.