My experience with the Fab Badge Maker by Alex Crafts

Alex Fab Badge Maker Review

My children and I got to spend time with our cousins this past holiday weekend.  The girls love learning new kids crafts, so we decided that testing out the "Fab Badge Maker" kit would be a fun activity for a nice summer day.  The bunny to the left is wearing a  bunny bow pin that my daughter made with this kit.

The Alex "Fab Badge Maker" kit recommends the "Fab Badge Maker" kit for kids 7 years old and up.  The list price is $21.99 and an online search found that the actual retail price varies.  What makes this kit different from so others badge (pin) kits, is that that it so easy to use and with a lot less parts.  Additionally, you can use fabrics and other ephemera with it.  This is not a traditional pin making kit since the designs of the pin are for utilizing fabric and not  the traditional paper.

The instructions have good simple step-by-step drawings on how to assemble the badge.  The "So-Easy Badge Maker" was a little tricky for my eight year old cousin to figure out.  There is a small learning curve for little fingers to learn to use it correctly.  However, once they play around with it for a bit, it gets easier.  The twelve and fourteen year olds, did not have any problems figuring out how to use the badge maker.  It is not time consuming and will hold their interest for the short time it takes to create a fun little badge (pin).

The Box of Supplies includes:

10 Badge parts ( 10 each of the tops, backings, and snaps)
1 So-Easy Badge Maker
12 Fabric Circles
12 Glitter Stickers and Gems
1 Instruction sheet

So-Easy Badge Maker

Fabric circles included in kit.

Floral Planter Badge Project

For my first project, I decided to make a flower plant stick that one of my daughters could use to give to a teacher aid at school.  The supplies for most of it were in the kit, I just added some floral petals, a glass container, dirt, moss and a small plant.

The first step is to take one of the pieces of fabric circles and place onto the "So-Easy Badge Maker".

You will push one of the badge tops like you see below into the "So-Easy Badge Maker".

Then you need to push down all the fabric to flatten it a bit.  If any of the fabric covers the small center circle, just remove it and start over to get it centered. Watch your layers, if you cut things just right you can add layers of various materials to the pin. The snap will not hold if there is fabric covering the center circle.

Then add the floral petals. If the center hole on the petal is too small, just cut a hole big enough to fit.

The next step is to push the backing piece into position and hold the layers of material in place until you

can put the back snap piece in place and snap it in securely.  Listen for the snap sound to be sure the pin backing are on securely, otherwise it will fall apart when you remove from the "So-Easy Badge Maker".

Next, you will carefully remove the badge from the badge maker.

And it will look like this.

The kids thought it looked a bit boring so they voted that we add one of the cute stickers included in this

kit.  They were right, it did look cuter.

Next I added a stick and placed into the planter.  It was so easy and very fast to make.

Ribbon Accent Project

I saw some really nice gift box ribbons at the gift counter at my local department and thought how nice they were.  However, at $7 for one ribbon, that was a bit steep for my budget.  So when I saw these badges, I realized I could make my own version of those ribbons.

I took the ribbon and cut about a 3" piece. Then I removed the wiring that ran on both sides of the

ribbon.  I also trimmed any excess from the ribbon.

The remaining ribbon fit well into the badge maker.

The ribbon was a bit stiffer fabric than the fabric circles that are included in this kit.  So I had to hold

them down until I could put the backing and the snap piece onto the badge maker.

I carefully removed the badge.

I made the rest of the bow with the same ribbon and pinned the badge to the bow. It looked just like the ones at the store.

Bunny Pin On Hat

My daughter loved the bow idea and decided to make the third project.  Her bunny needed a hair accent to go with her ice skating outfit.  So we looked at the supplies and figured out what we need and added to it from things we had in the craft box.

 We added ribbon, lace, and a few other small items.  My daughter was very proud of her finished piece.

Below are a few other pieces that the kids enjoyed making.  They went through my scrap drawer and found some different items to add to their badges like:

We are still working on my daughters mini altered scrap book, so she made a badge (pin) to put onto the page below.  The pink and blue pin has some beads, ribbon, floral die cut, and a butterfly glued onto it.

The next badge is made with paper die cut flower, I had left over from a scrapbooking project.  The petals were added in the same way I that I added the silk flower petals.

Paper Flower petal Pin

Next we went through the bead box to see what would work with these cute pins:

The pink ribbon ribbon bracelet made with some ribbon and rhinestones.

A happy face pin which is very simple and takes less than a minute to make.

The black and orange flower stick below is made from an old black t-shirt, paper leaves,

and folded paper (using the Martha Stewart Scoring Board).   Then the kids just glued the pin onto a stick.

All of these were easy to make.  As you can see, there was a range of different looks reflecting the different personalities of each girl.  There was a short learning curve for the younger girls but that did not stop them from having fun with these badges.  Another plus is that the pins spin, so you can easy add googly eyes or something similar to take advantage of the spin affect.

Disclosure

Review of the American Girl Crafts - Funky Felt Pins Kit

With summer quickly approaching it is a great time to plan some creative activities for my kids.  It is always wise to have some fun and easy crafting supplies on had to entertain the kids, especially on those hot summer afternoons.

Since, the American Girl dolls have always been popular in my household,  the idea of crafting with the the American Girl craft kits was met with a lot of enthusiasm.  These kits are available at local craft stores and online.  We wanted to try something portable and not too messy, so we choose to try out the American Girl "Funky Felt Pins" kit which is recommended for children eight years old and up.  The kit retails for $12.99.

The packaging on the "Funky Felt Pins"  is very colorful and a bit deceiving in a positive way.  From

the outside of the package, it does not look like you get much in the way of supplies.  However, I was

happily surprised to find it was jam packed full of enough supplies for my girls and their friends to give this kit a try and learn some basic embroidery skills.

This kit comes with the following:

● Project & Idea Booklet

● 12 yards of embroidery floss in 4 colors

● 33 plain felt pieces

● 5 embroidered patches

● 12 adhesive pin backs

● 10 sequin flowers

● 1 piece of white practice felt

● 1 needle

● 1 needle threader

The instruction booklet does have some nice colored simple instructions for their versions of the following stitches and knots:

● running stitch

● applique stitch

● cross stitch

● french knot

● finishing knot

The kit is color coordinated with enough materials to create at least 12 pins, which is great for an easy to do scout troop project.  However, you would have to pick up extra needles for each girl, since this kit only comes with one needle.  You can pick up pins at your local "Michaels Craft Store" or "JoAnns" fairly inexpensively.

The first thing I did was to lay out the pieces and then pick out a few different shapes to sew together.

Then I sewed the small floral sequin onto the green felt flower using white thread to make the stitches stand out.

I then sewed the green felt flower onto the orange felt flower.

Which was followed by sewing those pieces onto the darker felt flower.

The kids took a vote and wanted to add some bling to the flower.   So I added beads to finish it off the piece.

As you can see, the steps are very simple and easy to follow.  However,  I did find that it was a little bit challenging for little fingers to negotiate the needle and accomplish the smaller stitches.   However, even

with that frustration, the project certainly kept her attention.  A different size needle did make the 

difference for her .

 Here are some other projects we made with the die cut felt pieces provided in the kit.  The first is a felt

owl pin.

The second is a funky felt ring.

The third is a funky felt hair band.

The fourth is a funky felt  hair clip for their American Girl doll.

These projects are so fun and easy for the kids to do.  They also provide a great base surface for adding beads, buttons, rhinestones, and more.  This make room for some creative self expression allow by each child.

Tips:

●  Lay everything out so you can pick your colors and shapes.

●  If you are using the kit for younger children, you can help avoid frustration by using white glue to adhere the pieces together.  Let dry.  Then sew together with simple stitches.

●  Use up those fun beads and charms you  have around the house to use as accents for these fun pieces.

Disclosure.