Mint in Canthem: Briney Buttons

Erin Ichimura

Have you ever had a certain jacket, backpack, or other various garment that could use some spicing up? Well I’ve got the solution for you!

Okay, I don’t know any other way to start this post, but a few weeks ago my bosses at The Wave asked me to make some buttons to give out at our end-of-cycle party. Since we’re The Wave (ocean-y) the job was pretty much right up my alley. Hey, getting to make a bunch of buttons for all of my buddies, AND the buttons are ocean-themed? Wow. I couldn’t’ve asked for a better gig even if I had time to think about it.

Works in progress.

I’ve had a bit of experience making buttons in the past, and okay, that’s not very impressive-sounding, but for my job last summer I taught kids how to make art, and that included teaching them how to make buttons. Or, rather, I taught them how to draw the pictures so I could punch their drawings into buttons for them. It was a really fun job, and the best part was seeing what they’ve made afterwards.

For these Wave specific pins, I had a few designs in my mind that I knew I wanted to use, and I pretty much replicated each of then twice if I liked it a lot, or if I had a hunch that others would like it too. For example, when I had the idea to draw a blobfish, I knew it would be really funny because the fish is very ugly. (No offense to the blobfish, it’s not they’re fault that they are so ugly. They’re actually so odd looking because they live very deep in the ocean where the water pressure is crushing). So, I ended up making a few of those specific ones because I thought my fiends would like them, and they did!

Scrambled buttons.
The cream of the crop.

I also made a couple that I liked, without the influence of what I thought others would think. I really liked the octopus and squid pins especially, so I made a few extra of those. I also liked the anemone design and shark design, so I made a few extra of those. You can check out some of the designs I came up with above, or on the backpacks and jackets of a few of the coolest Wavers!