Homemade pins

You may know most pin shops order their pins from Chinese manufacturers. I used to do this as well, but this isn't environment friendly, especially because of shipping from China to France. I also prefer not "exploiting" Chinese workers who probably aren't paid as much as they should be. And there always is a risk that the manufacturer makes mistakes on the products, or that colors don't match my design due to screen colors.

That's why I've thought about a new way to make pins.

How? Do you know 3D metal printing? :D It almost works like regular 3D printing, but instead of using some kind of plastic, those 3D printers use metal! Stainless steel to be exact ^^

I have the chance that my father has a 3D metal printer at his work, which I will use to make those pins.

I then plate them myself using electroplating (for silver, black nickel and gold) or adonizing (for the "rainbow" effect).

Here comes the part which makes things different from regular enamel pins: I don't use enamel, but epoxy resin, that's why I write "hard enamel style", not just "hard enamel": it will look like hard enamel, but will be epoxy. As I do my colors myself, I can't match 100% Pantone colors, so there may be slight color differences between 2 pins, but not on the same pin ^^