Our Pledge: When you buy from ABM, you’re buying quality button parts

It is July 22nd, 2010. Do you know what that means? It’s officially Reiterate Our Pledge to Our Customers Day at American Button Machines.

If it sounds like we just made that up a couple of seconds ago, you would be both right and wrong.

Is today actually Reiterate Our Pledge to Our Customers Day at ABM? Sure it is. The tricky part is that, to us, every day is Reiterate Our Pledge to Our Customers Day.

And our pledge to our customers is very simple: when you buy a button machine or any button making supplies from us, we pledge to you that you are buying the highest quality button parts available. Bar none.

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Common Myths About Chinese-made Button Making Kits

Over at our American Button Machines website, we recently posted a couple of new pages that offer a detailed comparison between American-made button making kits and Chinese-made button maker kits. While we are sure that some of you have noticed the links to the new pages on the ABM homepage and checked them out, we are quite certain that most of you do not spend your days hitting “Refresh” on our homepage awaiting new links.

Thus, we are going to post the content of those pages here, in a four-part series that breaks the content on the website up into four smaller chunks.

In the first part of the series that we are posting today, we are going to provide an overview and take a quick look at a few common myths about 3-in-1 button makers that are manufactured in China.

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Button University Lesson 10: Badge-a-Minit Button Making Supplies – Size and Other Differences

Hello once again from your button blogging friends at American Button Machines. We are thrilled to have you back for the 10th and final lesson of Button University. (Please, take moment if you need to go grab tissues so you can wipe away the tears.)

Yesterday, we talked about fabric button machines and systems. Today, we are going to talk about Badge-a-Minit Supplies. For some of you, you are asking, “What in the world are Badge-a-Minit supplies?” Let me explain.

There are basically two kinds of button making supplies in the USA.

1. Industry standard button-sized supplies. These supplies fit 99% of all standard-sized button machines. Yes, we are in that 99.9%.

2. Badge-a-Minit sized button supplies. These supplies are slightly larger than the industry standard. They are designed specifically to fit Badge-a-Minit machines. People who are not aware that Badge-a-Minit machines don’t work with the US industry standards can end up wasting a lot of money when they buy the wrong sized button supplies.

To help out our customers, we also offer Badge-a-Minit supplies for a lower price at. Our BAM Supplies are Certified and Guaranteed and Badge-a-Minit “sized”. They will work…hassle-free.

Not only are they less expensive when purchased from us, but our same standard of excellence applies. Here are the differences between their supplies and our BAM Supplies.

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Button University Lesson 8: Making Buttons Is Easy!

Yesterday, in Lesson 7 of Button University, we talked about ways for you to create your templates for your buttons. Today, we are going to show you how easy it is to make a button when using our easy to use, quality button machines.

Watch it happen. Check out the videos of the process. The longest one is only 24 seconds! It really is that easy to make a button!

• Button Machine Video
  
• Adjustable Rotary Cutter Video
• High Volume Die Cutting Press

Here are some more simple step-by-step guidelines on how to make a button using products from American Button Machines.

Button Machine Step-by-Step

Step 1: Place the button components in the Pickup Die and the Crimp Die.
Step 2: Rotate the Pickup Die clockwise until it is underneath the Upper Die.
Step 3: Pull the handle down, easily crimping the shell, graphic, and mylar in the Upper Die.

Punch Cutter Step-by-Step

Step 1: Insert the paper strip into the punch cutter and center the graphic in the hole.
Step 2: Push the handle down until the punch goes all the way through the paper.
Step 3: Remove the cut graphic and place to the side.
Step 4: Pull the paper strip through, center the next graphic, and repeat steps 2 and 3.

As you can quickly tell, it doesn’t take long to make a button. And it’s certainly not very difficult! Join us tomorrow as we talk a little more about Fabric Buttons.

Button University Lesson 5: Choosing the Right Kind of Button Paper

Welcome back!

In our last Button University post, about cutters, I promised you we’d talk about paper button makers, and I am here to deliver on that promise. Friday is half over now, and weekend plans are underway. If it’s as rainy in your city as it is in mine, then it may very well be the perfect time to start creating those buttons! In order to do that, let’s talk about button paper.

A common mistake when buying button paper for use in a button making project is spending too much money and making it too complicated. We’re going to simplify the process for you today.

Unlike the paper cutters of other manufacturers, our cutters have been designed to make your paper-buying experience less expensive and hopefully a bit more fun!

Here are some simple tips on how to choose the right kind of button paper:

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Button University Lesson 4: The Three Different Kinds of Cutters

Sorry for the late posting time on today’s Button University lesson. Sometimes the phone just rings and rings and rings and our duty as gatekeepers to the wonderful world of buttons beckons from sunrise to sundown. After a moment to catch my breath, it is now time for some late afternoon fun here at The Button Blog.

Yesterday, in lesson 4 of our ongoing Button University series, we discussed design standards for button machines and gave you the reasons why ours have the best button machine design available on the market. Today, we are going to dive feet first into cutters. And if you are a graduate of Indiana University, no, this post does not have anything to do with the Cutters race team or the Little 500.

(Raise your hand if you understood that reference? The movie Breaking Away? Anyone? Okay, not many hands up. I hear crickets. Let’s just move along now, shall we?)

So, let’s say that you are getting ready to start a button project. You have your button machine, you have all of your button supplies, and you even have sheets of neatly printed circular graphics ready to go. Are you ready to start making buttons?

Not so fast. Your gorgeous and beautiful graphics must be cut out!

How are you going to accomplish this?

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Button University Lesson 3: Best Button Machine Design Standards

Welcome to the third edition of our continuing daily Button University series. In previous posts, we tackled issues related to button making instructions and button sizes, and today we look at button machine designs; and specifically, how ABM products incorporate the best button machine design standards in the ever burgeoning button maker market.

Let’s make one thing clear right off the bat: we believe that our button makers incorporate the finest materials and technology to consistently produce quality buttons time and time again. In no way is this meant to disparage our competition. Rather, it is a simple proclamation to our customers that you can completely trust that the products you receive from American Button Machines will be the best. Period.

Why are we so confident that our products employ the best button machine design standards? Let’s count out a few of the reasons:

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Button University Lesson 2: Button Sizes – Choosing the Right One

On Friday, we introduced you to our new series of posts that highlight some of the information available at the Button University resource of our main website. The first post in the series provided step-by-step instructions for any button making project. Today, we delve into an important decision that must be made when you are making buttons: with all of the different button sizes available, which one should you use for your project?

Over at our main website, we have a handy-dandy table that you can use for quick reference regarding decisions on button sizes. While we could simply repost that table here, what would be the fun in that? Plus, we know that some people don’t always like looking at tables and charts. So we will use our space here to outline, in a little more detailed fashion, which button sizes and button machine options work best for producing different button types and styles.

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Button University Lesson 1: Instructions For Starting a Button Making Project

Throughout the years, so many of our wonderful customers have asked us for information, tips, and tutorials regarding button making and how to use their newly purchased button machine. We are always willing and excited to answer any question whether over the phone or though email, but also have made it our goal to give you online access to as many resources as we can provide.

One of these resources is Button University. We introduced Button University in an earlier post, and now we are setting out to provide all of our loyal blog readers with the same information that our website and storefront customers receive over at the main ABM site.

So with that in mind, let’s dive right into your first lesson from Button University: step-by-step instructions for starting a button making project.

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Event Fundraising Ideas for Non-Profits: Use Buttons to Promote, Enhance Event

Custom buttons can be a great way to help market and advertise events hosted by your non-profit organization, and enhance your fundraising initiatives. Buttons can be used as gifts, advertisements, and status symbols, as well as many other uses. Non-profits that utilize buttons for promoting events employ a cost-effective way to get their message out to a large audience.

Using buttons to advertise for your non-profit organization is a low-cost way to boost fundraising efforts in several ways. Here a few proven event fundraising ideas for non-profits that can help your non-profit fundraising efforts:

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