Pinback Buttons and Happy Faces

The biggest problem with the button machine is encouraging the girls NOT to make buttons all the time. I'm all, "Sweetie, you don't work at TGI Friday's. A girl only needs so much flair." Perhaps their pinbacks will get more use when we start homeschooling in a couple of months--before that, and I can't even imagine the conniption their teacher would have if they brought their pointy little accessories to school with them.

Of course, when they see me sitting at the table making some pinbacks myself (which I was doing for my pumpkinbear etsy shop yesterday)-- --it is GAME ON.

Willow and I have toyed off and on with the idea, for over a year now, of letting her make something on her own to sell at my craft fairs. I should have thought harder, because last year I really wasn't able to come up with anything that she could make that I thought would actually sell--one time at Strange Folk a sweet old lady did pay one dollar for four of the turf clods that Willow had wrapped with duct tape and put on a shelf, but she wouldn't actually take them. So that's not so much success. But as the girls worked, and worked, and worked on their buttons--

--they came up with an idea that turned out really cool:
Smiley faces! I traced a button circle template several times on artist's paper, and gave each kid, with MANY admonishments and advisories, my very nice, fine-tipped Sharpie and Micron pens, and away they went. The simplicity of their creation works well, and it's recognizable to the average person (unlike a lot of children's art), and it ends up looking very unique without looking too childish.
And in case you have doubts that the kids can actually MAKE the pinbacks by themselves, I present Willow:

And Sydney, complete with bonus sister-squabbling action:

It's a rainy day today, so even more pinbacks is not an impossibility.