Making a button/badge with stamps?

[tdyans]

I'd like to make some buttons/badges as a little thank-you gift to some people who are helping me out with something.  I'll be making the image for the badge with a hand-carved stamp.  My question is what to make the badge itself out of-- what to stamp *on*.  I may end up just buying some of those "make your own button" thingies from the craft store where they supply the plastic and you just insert an image.  That would work, but I'm wondering if there's something more special I could do.  I've made pins from dominoes before, and something like that would be neat, but it would need to be a bit larger than a domino (without being super heavy) and preferably circular in shape. 

Any ideas of a material I could use that can be stamped on and could also have a pin glued on the back to make it into a button?

[kwicz]

What a cute idea!  How about cover-your-own-button kits and fabric?   I saw some really cute hand stamped fabric-covered button pins at a local boutique, it looked like the maker had just clipped off the shank of the button and glued on a pin back.  Or circles cut or punched out of plastic lids, and pin back findings.  Really anything you have handy that's stiff enough (or can be stiffened) will work if you glue a pin back on it.  Now I want to go find those chipboard circles I got the other day and get out my stamps and pin backs!   

[Spiffyhink]

When I did something similar a while back I just glued two pieces of a cardboard box together and then put my image on top. It worked well enough for my purposes, but I guess it depends on what you're looking for. You could also use bottlecaps.

[tdyans]

Thanks for the ideas!  I'll have to keep them in mind for the future.  For this project, I ended up coming up with the idea to stamp *into* something instead of *onto* something.  I got some sculpey and stamped into it and then cut out the stamped badge with an exacto knife.  They turned out pretty cool-- I'll have to try to remember to post some photos later.

[kwicz]

Please do!  It sounds really cute!

[suzanneartist]

I like to write as well as illustrate, and was looking into purchasing a button maker. The cheap ones aren't worth it from my research. But there are people who create the button for you. I ended up having someone make my designs into pinbacks and am please with the outcome.
As far as cloth, I'd look into buying cloth buttons and cutting off the shank as suggested above.