May 3, 2010

100% Cool Badge Maker Review

I purchased the 100% Cool Badge Maker by Creative Toys this weekend at my local craft store. I thought that it might be a fun craft for my children to do over the summer; I also wanted to use it to make a Mother’s Day Pin.

When I opened the package, I was immediately disappointed with the instructions. Though I love to have pictures with the instructions, I hate it when it is just pictures and no words. I understand that it cuts down on the manufacture’s cost because they do not have to have several translated versions of the instructions but often just pictures can be very confusing to the consumer.

After several tries, I finally understood how it worked. Basically you place a piece of plastic in the center of the badge maker, then the badge pattern, and lastly begin to assemble the button pieces together (the pieces are interlocking and can be hard to press together).

I have so much card stock on hand I thought it would work great for the pins but card stock is too heavy. You have to use thin paper, magazine images seemed to work the very best for making the pins.

Once, I got the hang of the Badge Maker I helped my children make some pins. My children are 6 and 8 yrs old. They were immediately excited to make the badges. They worked on decorating the fronts but were quite frustrated with the assembling of the badge and needed a lot of help.

Overall the 100% Cool Badge Maker is an okay kid’s product but it is not something they can do completely on their own. Please note on Amazon.com the product did not get a good review. I think because it is hard for kids to use and needs a lot of adult help. Which I strongly agree with, the product frustrated my children more than it helped to foster their creativity.

However, for an adult it is a neat product that you can get really creative with, especially as a scrapbooking tool. I made several pins; I found magazine images the easiest to work with or embellishing the circular paper they provide with scrapbooking paper punches. I am also very excited about the thought of adding them to the center of hair bows.

Click here for the:
Mother's Day Pin and Card Tutorial Using the 100% Cool Badge Maker

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3 comments:

  1. Thanks for your review. I was thinking about buying one of these since they are so cheap, but I don't want to be disappointed either. It looks so neat too!

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  2. Very helpful review

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  3. I completely agree with you that it's perfect for adults. Although the whole work is creative. In this blog post you also describe about embellishing the circular paper. Could you please describe a little more about it?

    Custom Name Badges

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