Perfect For Valentines Day

We are dead chuffed to announce that our beloved buttons made it to the interwebs in the biggest way to date when they appeared on www.glamour.com. (Click the image for the link to the article. Come on, you know you wannnnna!)

These have been blogged about by private individuals many times ( and we’ve loved them all! Often they appear in wedding blogs after the magic day, photos of the buttons next to wedding rings and bridal bouquets…squee! ) but it seems like we hit the big time this Valentines Day.  It’s wonderful to know that they’re still working their super cute magic. Huzzah! We’ve sold dozens to new etsy members and we assume they found us via the article, so Thanks Glamour, we appreciate the props and the biz. Kissing during the recession seems to be a most popular activity!

I’ll blog soonish with some awesome new stuff…maybe even later today. For now,  I must away to get started on some Thai Coconut soup for lunch. Yummy!

Au reviour World,

A~

Now that it’s February and that means Valentines Day is not far off!

This is Smooches the Tiny Valentine Bunny, you can find her in my shop!  She loves to kiss and cuddle, that’s why she is perfect for Valentines Day! Need a gift for your sweetie? How about the perfect hint for your crush? Smooches would love to help spread the love!

I was browsing through the pages of Etsy yesterday looking for a Valentines themed treasury. I haven’t had much luck in snagging a treasury lately, so I thought I would share them with you. First is this set of buttons from buttonempire, I had to get a set for myself and the Mr. Just too perfect for the crafty girl and her geek!

The Dynamic Duo-1 Inch Buttons For Married Cool People, they also come in magnet form!

Maybe you are looking for something sweet for your sweetie or even just for yourself! The XOXOXO Hug and Kiss Cookie Collection from whippedbakeshop would be perfect! I think they would be fun to take into the office and share with your co-workers for a pre-Valentines snack too!

Last but not least, it is February, so it is still cold out there!I love these Hand Knit Eco-Friendly Valentine Chocolate Handwarmers from KnitsbyJess! What a great way to show your love to any girl in your life…or yourself!

I know Valentines Day was one of those holidays created by a big company to sell greeting cards. Some people even like to boycott the day because of that, instead why don’t you check out the selection on Etsy and support handmade!

Thanks for stopping by and have fun!

Sometimes, in my never ending hunt for cool vintage materials with which to make cool schwag I come upon something that makes my heart beat a little faster. That happened this afternoon when, at a site I can not disclose for purposes of hoarding and greediness, I found an magazine from 1968 in which there was a cherry red and like new ad for the Capitol Record Club. In less than an hour I had cut and buttoned and photographed these very sweet magents into being.

I know these will sell. The last ones (made almost a year ago…these ads are SUPER rare!) sold really quickly…I still miss them. I’ll miss these too…but they’ll go to someone who adores them I’m sure. Why? Because, they are so freakin’ cool.

It was a weird, overcast day here today so we rented a schwack of foriegn/indie/documentry films today. We enjoyed “Fido”, a colour saturated zombie story with a difference and “King of Kong” a really interesting documentry about the Donkey Kong world record and the politics and shenanigans and odd bravery surrounding it’s rightful owner. I loved that film. If you can find it I’m giving you the ok to rent it.  It’s worth the time out of your life.

On that note, we’ll check in soonish with other stuff to say and show.

G’Night World,

A~

I’ve been super busy in the last couple of weeks.

Buttons sell well during the holiday season, even if it is a recession, so I’ve had the punch out quite a bit.

No matter what people love to declare their smooching wishes and President Obama freakin’ won  the election (huzzah!) so we had to make a tonne of those babies.

Artists Rendering of True Events

K.A.S.H

Kittens everywhere resent being used to make you look sweet Mr.Harper.

In addition, Ordinary Canadian Kittens support supporting the Arts.

They also think you should stop trying to manipulate the Canadian electorate by calling early elections because you think you can get a Majority government.

They strongly dislike your slime ball tactics in running, not just negative attack ads, but negative attack ads when there isn’t even an election on.

You ruined their Christmas holiday last year with your creepy anti Dion ads shoved in between ads for tasty kibble and nifty remote control toys.

And do not even get them started on how you lied about taxing Income Trusts.

Basically, this button says it all.
You do not have the support of Kittens.
Stop forcing them to appear with you.

Due to copyright laws, I cannot use the photo of the poor ginger Kitten being held by our Dead Eyed PM, but I have done a quick artists’ rendering of the horror of a Kitten trapped in his arms.

Peace Out,

A~

Hot off the press are these two fresh pinbacks for the guy and gal who plan on jumping the broom.

They’re pretty sweet and still available in the etsy shop. That’s www.buttonempire.etsy.com.

Fierce.

Anyhoo…we’re both hard at work, as always.

Got some of the pieces we made in our time off framed up and they look great.  

Bruno has some pretty exciting irons in the fire, but I’m not going to elaborate until we get confirmation. 

Let’s just say,  buy his work now. 

 It’s a great investment.

Ummm…the world seems a bit nutty right now, does it not? 

I’ve really come to enjoy the SNL 3rd American debate skit, if you’re seeing this blog via my Facebook page, that bit is emedded on my page and I think you should watch it.

Joe the Plumber.

You can’t make that shit up!

On that note, my ear hurts and i’m off to bed.

Pax Out.

A~

Sarah Palin.

Really?

Sarah Palin?

America. You’ve got me worried.

To alleviate some of the McPalin anxiety I made a Wii Palin, and man, is she mean.

Yowzers! Scary!

I find it hard to get my head around the chance that this woman may be VP in time for my Birthday.

I’ll say more soon and add some buttons too, but we’ve got company coming, so I’m heading off the interwebs for the rest of the day.

Until We Meet Again,

Be Well.

A~

We’re already more than halfway through our break so I figured I owed the blog some “pets and rubs”.

Today I’d like to touch upon the general vibe here.

It’s quite surreal in a way which I have yet to find unkind or ugly.

It’s so like 1982 that I find myself very nearly in the futuristic dream life of my 14 year old self.

I get to lolly gag through the day, in a near teenage haze, eating whatever/whenever I want, watching old movies and laying in the sun.  I’m even having having a nice glass of wine here and there. It’s totally the stuff of which my IKEA catalogue Teenage Dreams were based.

Prairie Cottage

I have my own nice house, with my own nice stuff, I’m married to a really swell guy and we have a crazy cat and there are so many stars at night and you can see deep into the Milky Way, and crickets chirp and the wind blows woman sage and men sage perfume while meteors flame across the open sky on lovely summer evenings.Later, in the clover scented daytime, old dudes wearing grease stained ball caps talk about the harvest at the local Chinese/Canadian restaurants.

Etc etc.

To sum up, it’s been just swell so far. All I need is a Drive In Theatre and some peanut M and M’s and the 1982 time travel could be complete.

Willow Bunch Giant

Democracy, Bengough Style!

Here in southeast Saskatchewan the peeps are mellow, the land is blessedly Hummer free, the reality of weather and water actually count here, and the landscape is beautiful.  I adore the complex groundcover of the untouched prairie, the flowers, the cactus, pretty lichen covered stones dotting the picture here and there. It’s like Dances With Wolves without the hamball acting.

My Runner's Dream Run.

 Anyhoo…I’ll try to blog once more before we head back to Alberta.

Right now, I want to upload a bunch of pics so I’d better stop with the typing and start with the dial up cursing!

Cheers World,

A~

Think of all the trouble one could avoid if the asshats didn’t apply to be a part of your life.

That would be awesome!

This button was made in honour of some maroon who thinks that because he’s childless he can use more resources.

Uh, it doesn’t work that way, Mr.Dufushead.

Honestly.

Thanks heavens he’s not procreating, the last thing Big Mama needs is another selfish freakazoid sucking back potable water and leaving a carbon highway, nevermind a lil’ old carbon footprint.

This one’s for you, Loserboy!

And with that…I’ll next update the blog from Saskatchewan.

Neat…

Peace Out,

A~

…because I’m bone weary of the horses’ ass whose been driving the usa for the last 8 years!

Thank heavens we’re moving on.

You know, I may be so nuts about American Politics because of my birth date. It’s Jan, 20 aka Inauguration day in the USA. As I grew up in a political household, I remember that evening as either a good night or a bad night, depending on who made it in.

The first dude I remember was Jimmy Carter and I recall my Mom was pretty happy about that.

By ‘82 I was old enough to understand that Reagan and I were not on the same page.

And so forth and so on.

Bush was a tough one to take.

Dimpled chads haunted my dreams and I worried about how badly he could fuck things up.

Turns out I underestimated his talents for fucking up.

Oy Vay, what an 8 years it’s been.

So I am STOKED ( yes STOKED) about Senor Obama getting in and switching things up.

I look forward to healthcare and climate change, green energy , education and human rights being on the agenda.

And I hope that *if* some bad shit goes down, he’ll inspire the world with common sense and hope rather than telling us to go shopping.

I hope he’ll be a Man.

A mighty mighty Good Man.

And that’s all for tonight peeps.

Peace Out from the Foothills.

A~

Hello nerds.

How cute are you?

With your model spaceship collections and your Einstien with his tongue out poster on your closet door and that salty by the sea no brand deodorant smell….*swoon*….

You’d steam up my glasses. 

 If I ever wore my glasses.

On that note, a friend and I were talking on a little forum I hang at and he felt that he was not a babe magnet as he is a bit on the cerebral side.

But I’m a girl and I know what girls like.  Girls like nerds.  

Especially if they smell good and are fun to hang with.

Nerds are hawt even.

Flaunt it!

And girl nerds should flaunt it too! It’s cool to be a nerd.

You know, everybody can be cool.

Jocks and stoners and nerds and…hey…it just dawned on me I still see people in terms of high school cliques.

Like, omg, that’s so like Breakfast Club and stuff.

Alright. On that note I’ve got a tonne of stuff to do.

The gardens need a thorough clean up and that is no small task.

That reminds me, we’ve had crocus and bluebells and we’re waiting on grape hyacinth.

I put water in the fountain a few weeks ago too.

That officially means Spring is Sprung in the foothills of southern Alberta.

I believe I’ll get the man to bring up the furniture to better facilitate hanging out there in the sunshine. Yay!

Hey, I know times are tough for peeps all over the world.

I hope you’re chillaxin’ as best you can.

May The Force Be With You.

A~

Just a quick Hello World.

I’ve been awol, but it’s been in a good cause.

I’ve been sewing up a storm.

I just wanted to check in and post an old digital collage I made back in 2005.

It seems oh so timely in more ways than one.

I hope all is well in your neck o the woods.

Later,

A~

There is an etsy seller by the name of Her Royal Majesty Bags who this pin would’ve been perfect for.

But to ensure that she saw it I would’ve had to drop her a note.

And that would’ve been spam.

I don’t really know her either, so it wouldn’t have been cool.

So I listed it and hoped she would see it, as it really would’ve been perfect for her.

I let my buttons find the right owners, taking faith in the notion that the right pin gets to the right person and that person wears it at the right time and that maybe the right person meets their soul mate because they’re wearing it. And then those two get together and make a baby and that baby is Tesla re-incarnated and he makes some groovy network of free clean energy stations around the world and because of those stations climate change gets a death blow and the arctic gets cold again and I win the Nobel Prize for coolest buttons ever.

Anyhoo…HRMB did not buy the button.

It was listed for less than a day and some other lucky soul will get to carve out a future with it pinned on their lapel or backpack or onto their knitting bag.

And so, the beat goes on…

Ciao,

A~

…what the punters will get up to next.

We make this little cutie for all the sassy Lesbians out there. We also do a “Sorry Girls, I’m Gay” for the gentleman who digs gentlemen. Over the weekend I made some of these at my real gig.

 Part of my deal with my boss is that I make buttons at work in the down times. It’s cool. Peeps of all sorts come in a look at the buttons and sometimes I give out treat buttons to sad people or cute people…it all depends. This weekend two youngish lads, Geoff and Micheal , dropped in to admire the coolness that is our buttons. One could not help but notice Micheals chapeau. It was a fuchsia knit cap that was, for various reasons, rather sassy for a young lad to sport about a small town. I admired it and his fashion chutzpa and told him to pick a button for being so cool. After going through about 200 buttons he settles on the “Sorry Boys, I’m a Lesbian.”

This amuses me.

Greatly.

It amuses them too. I try to give the buttons away, but Geoff insists on paying for Mikes buttons. Mike has his Lesbian pin and a punk rocky skull button too and he pins them both on his pink knitted hat. Yay! He looks mahvelous! They leave the store and  in ten minutes they come back for more. Turns out Geoff wants the other Lesbian pin too! He pays up , pins it on and off they go into the small town Alberta Saturday night.

You know, I never thought teen boys were going to wear our Lesbian pins. The events of the night remind how awesome buttons are. And how I just make them, then they find their own way in the world…much like we do…

 Happy Monday,

A~

…and You’ll hear the sound of paint drying…

That’s right.The minor renovations to the Imperial headquarters are done.

For now anyway.

The funny thing about making things nicer is that when you fix one thing up you start to see all the other things that need a bit of spit and polish as well.

As I write this I can think of several spots that need a secondary bit of loving, but they’ll just have to wait. The house itself needs a good solid straighten up before I go into my other gig this week. Add to that an awesome wholesale order I’m putting together for a little boutique and some neato wedding pins for another peep, I am again busier than a one legged man in an arse kicking contest.

Todays Button Of The Day is a well loved classic.

I thought I’d remind myself that, despite my deep loathing of painting houses, as long as Cheney doesn’t shoot your face up with a load of buckshot, it’s not all that bad after all.

Until next time, Party On.

A~

We heard back from ELLE Italy over the weekend.

Our buttons made the cut for their article on bike riding.

Yay! We are stoked!

Our photo, taken right here in the Imperial headquarters by moi with my little digital camera, will grace the pages of the Febuary issue of ELLE.

Does it get any better than that for a buttonmaker who seeks to change the world via her buttons? I’m not sure…maybe a show at the MOMA would top this delightful turn in our exsistence.

I’d like to thank all the little people who helped get us here…heh heh.

At moments like these all sorts of Acadamy Award schtick runs through my head, including Sally Field’s infamous…”You like me, you really like me!”

And on that note, Happy Festivus all!

Catch you later, Gator.

A~