One of the stores our shopping script buys packages from is button making machine beanforest (@actualbeanforest on Instagram).

Vince, the proprietor of beanforest, is an artist born, raised, and currently tromping around in Grand Rapids, MI. When not filling orders, he enjoys drawing, writing, reading, biking, dancing when appropriate, and recreational screaming-at-the-heavens.

It all started when Vince’s 2009 tax return was spent on a button machine almost as a joke. The money probably would’ve been whittled away on books, DVDs, and bars if left to its own devices, so it seemed as good an option as any to blow the cash on something with a price tag larger than $20. He had always drawn comic strips, greeting cards, etc, to entertain myself, friends, and bored coworkers, and a pinback button felt like another usable surface to cover in jokes and strangeness.

Worst case scenario, Vince thought, the machine gets used a few times and then stuffed in the back of a closet waiting for the inevitable evening when friends are over goofing around on the porch, and someone says something funny, and someone else says, “haw haw, that’d be funny, on, like, a button!” and then his eyes could light mischievously and he would scamper inside saying, “hold on just a sec…” We are glad that the button machine has spent exactly zero days stuffed in the back of a closet, as it has now supplies our subscribers with quite a few interesting and unique buttons!

For more subscribe to Bobcat In A Box and add ‘buttons’ to your keywords or buy directly from beanforest on Etsy.