Making Pinbacks from Old Postage Stamps

Here's a little behind-the-scenes fun for you. I won't call it a tutorial, because the equipment needed to do this is prohibitively expensive; a very generous family member purchased this for me and I'm still in the clouds over it.

Making pinback buttons is the bestest funnest thing EVER! I have this little glassine envelope of old stamps from Yugoslavia. Most are the perfect size to fit on a 1.25" pinback button. In my opinion, it's much more fun to display them then to keep 'em in an envelope in a drawer somewhere.

First, I decided to mount them on paper so the shiny part of the button didn't show through. To be as authentic as possible, I used super vintage yellow graph paper.

One of the things that makes pinback equipment so costly is this amazing circle cutter tool. Like everything else, it is SOLID STATE and adjustable so you can make these perfect circle cuts.

So next, you need all of the button parts: the back, the smooth front part, and a clear mylar cover. It's time to make a button sandwich!


Here is this juicy stamp, just waiting to be smashed into an awesome button. Notice that there's plenty of yellow paper hanging over the edges, but most of that gets wrapped around and tucked into the middle of the button.



Ta-da! So, so thrilling!!