--published in Venus Zine / Issue 67 / Winter 2002.
Buttongal: Chicago’s One-Inch Buttonmaker
Christen Carter reignited the one-inch button market in 1995 after talking with a button-making friend in London and realizing that few people were doing it stateside. Carter saved her pennies to invest in a button-making machine, named her company Busy Beaver, and worked solo for the first few years. The business grew organically, and now employs four of Carter’s friends, who work out of Busy Beaver’s headquarters – Carter’s apartment in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village. After producing 7,000 button designs, Busy Beaver decided to take on a new challenge – dispensing buttons from gumball machines. Carter scored a load of vending machines and is dispensing one-inchers at various Chicago restaurants and hangouts.
How did Busy Beaver get started?
I was living in London on a work exchange through Indiana University and a friend was making buttons over there for bands and his own promotion. I realized that nobody was really offering custom buttons in the U.S. anymore, so he showed me around his machine. I had gotten sort of friendly with Guided by Voices in London, and when I came back to the States; they asked me what I was planning to do. I said that I was thinking about making one-inch buttons for bands, and they said they’d be my first customer. That really made me go out and find a machine and figure out how to print (I just used the IU computers) and figure out pricing (which I’ve never changed). I then went through my record collection and sent fliers to all those people and it just kept growing.
It seems like button-making could get monotonous?
Very true! Pressing and pinning are really repetitive. But it’s a good job for people who don’t mind just thinking or listening to music or NPR while working.
Who are some of your well-known customers?
Sleater-Kinney, Lost Goat, Paul Westerberg, the Butchies, Le Tigre, Tracy + the Plastics, Stereolab, Beck, Tenacious D, NOFX, Slayer, and Fisher Spooner.
You employ your friends and work out of your apartment. Do you sometimes have to be the boss and say, “OK, we’re done having a beer, guys. Let’s get to work”?
I’m not completely comfortable being a boss. I had to learn how to deal with being communicative, but now I’m more comfortable. But I sometimes ask, “Do you think you’ll be OK to come in tomorrow morning or are you going to be hung over?”
What are the biggest perks of running your own business and working from home?
We can cook food while we’re working and the kitties are nice to have around. If I ever worked in an office, Max and Floyd would have to do some serious adjusting.
What’s your workaday schedule?
We work like mad Monday through Thursday and take Friday off unless it’s super busy. But I work really late when it’s busy; otherwise, I usually wrap up about 7 p.m.
There are several button Web sites that look like yours (www.busybeaver.net), and some of them even have similar price gauges and timelines. Since you were the one who got this button thing going again, what’s your take on the competition?
I think there’s room for us all. I honestly feel like we’re a great business and do a great job, so that’s all I can do. But it’s sort of a nice feeling to have set a standard in the independent one-inch buttons world.
You had an opening party for your button machines in September. How did the project begin?
It’s working out really well, and I love doing it. I was talking to a New York friend who has a vending machine in a record store there, and me and Rosie [Sanders, a Busy Beaver employee] decided “We have to do that here!” We scored vintage vending machines on eBay, and asked some friends [including Archer Prewitt, Jessica Abel, Emily Counts, and Paul Koob] to design buttons. The next exhibit will be in December or January, and I think the theme will be a scavenger hunt.
If the vending machines do well in Chicago, would you be interested in expanding to include more artists and venues in other cities?
I’m not sure, I guess we’ll see. We have 20 machines and 10 are en route, so there’s room to grow. There’s been some interest from people in New York, but we haven’t figured out how to refill, do maintenance, etc. I don’t see myself stopping anytime soon.
Expanding?
Sure we could grow and I’d like that.
Any advice for potential entrepreneurs with original ideas?
For people who don’t like paperwork, I say just go for it and deal with the paperwork after you’re actually earning a little bit. And don’t be shy about promoting your ideas, talk to people about it.
—Gretchen Kalwinski
Chicago, Illinois
