StockPins Blog

The way I see it – lapel pins are all about the community.   People really connect over pins.  So to prove that pins can do the same online – here’s my PinBait. 

Post a link to blog.stockpins.com and I’ll send you one of our “Ask Me About My Blog” lapel pins.   These are great pins that are bound to get people talking.  They measure 1″, have satin antique pewter finish and a military clutch back.   All you have to do is email me the link and your mailing address and I’ll send you the pin.   I’ve made up 500 of these pins – so once they’re gone – so’s the Pinbait.  Email your link to pinbait@stockpins.com

Feel free to leave your comments here as well.  Thanks

Recently we asked one of our dearest customers to share a bit about how he uses lapel pins and why he does so.  First a bit of background.  Larry has been a frequent customer for over 3 years and is responsible for designing some of our awareness ribbon pins.  Whenever there was a particular cause for which Larry wanted to raise awareness – and there wasn’t an existing pin – Larry would submit his own design to be used in our library.   He’s a bit like Johnny Appleseed – only with pins.  Handing out pins to people to help raise awareness and to bring a smile to their face. 

We asked Larry to share a bit about his experiences and why he hands out so many pins.  Here is what he had to say. 

There is a saying:  ”Out of sight, out of mind”.    Anyone who has been affected by something, hopes for breakthroughs leading to a cure to eradicate whatever affected them.  But nothing  will materialize until the research has been done, and just like a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, the sooner you start, the sooner you get there.  Unfortunately, most people don’t get involved until they have personally been affected; it is not like they don’t care, but since they are not personally affected, they are not thinking about it.  It is out of sight, so it is out of their  mind.   The awareness pins help remind others that it is not just something you read about in the Newspapers or see on Television, but real people they run into on a daily basis are affected.  It reminds people that we need to be fighting this because there are real people suffering and it could happen to someone close to them.

The research our grandparents’ generation did is the reason why diseases that use to decimate the countryside, (diseases like Small Pox, and Polio) the kids of today only know  about these things from reading history books.  If we are successful, the diseases we are plagued with today will be something our grandchildren’s generation will only know about from studying history.  If everyone contributes a small amount, it starts to add up over time.  The Awareness pins help remind people that these problems are still out there, we must not forget about these problems so we can remain focused in fighting them.   We must not forget about them until we have solved the problem.

Thank you for sharing Larry!  You can read some of Larry’s experiences with Autism Awareness Pins, Breast Cancer Ribbons, Leukemia Awareness.

Friday afternoon 4:50pm….  The phone rings:

SP:  “Hello, stockpins – how can I help you?”
Aaron:  “I’ve got an impossible request, I need 50 pig lapel pins - tomorrow, in Seattle” 

Well – it turns out that Aaron’s birthday just happened to fall on Sunday – the beginning of the lunar new year – which this year happens to be The Year of the Pig.  He was having a party at a bar and wanted to give pig pins to everyone at the party so they could easily identify who was with his group.    (we got the pins out that night via FedEx – Saturday delivery and fedex confirmed they made it!)

Another great way to use pins – thanks for the idea Aaron and we hope your birthday bash was a success. 

A customer called yesterday and ordered 10 pins each of about 20 different designs.  All sorts of designs, a bunch of different animal pins, some western pins, some biker pins – they didn’t seem to have anything in common so I asked what they were planning to do with all these pins.  Her answer was inspiring:

We have about 150 employees here and we just got new ID Badges.  Many of the employees are new and don’t know eachother.  We thought it would be a good conversation starter to have them each pick a pin to put on their badge that says something about themselves.  Then they may find they have something in common with someone else.    For example, if they see someone with a  horse pin on their badge they’d know maybe that person is interested in horses too – and start a conversation.  

Our customers are so creative!  What a fantastic idea!

February is American Heart Disease Awareness Month.  Heart disease is the number one killer in America.  We encourage you to support the American Heart Association and their Go Red For Women campaign. 

In conjunction with Heart Disease Awareness Month – we’re making available a limited number of our Heart Pin in bright red.  Use this to show your support – or better yet – use the red heart in your fundraising campaign as a way to thank donors.  Quantities will be limited so please call 800-856-0595 if you need quantities in excess of 500pcs. 

Also featured this month is the Heart Disease Awareness ribbon pin – this pin was designed by one of our customers and features a heart with the Caduceus on the bottom left. 

I saw this on TV a few weeks ago on How It’s Made – and thought it was really cool.  This is how we make most of our pins – it’s called rubber mold casting

Video on YouTube

Lots of changes coming.  As I type, our friends at SolidCactus are busy programming some new features into the site. 

• Product Reviews – This is sort of a misnomer – but basically we wanted to give our customers a place to give feedback on our items.   You’ll be able to leave reviews and rate all our items.  In addition to reviews – we’re really hoping that you will share your experiences about how you use our pins.  We hear some really creative and heartwarming stories and we want you have a place to share them.  Maybe you can help someone else come up with an idea.
• Send a Page to a Friend – this isn’t rocket science but our customers do tend to cut and paste links into emails – this button will give you an easy way to send a page to a friend – if you think they’d be interested in an item
• Pricing tables format – kind of a nuts and bolts thing that takes care of a limitation in the yahoo store format.  Now we’ll have nicely formatted pricing tables – automatically.
• This Blog – We’re integrating the blog into the store under a “community” tab – to make it easy to find and easy to share ideas.

Hi all – just wanted to say a few words about this blog.  For years now I’ve been talking with our customers, email you all and I thought this would be a great way to share some of the interesting stories I hear.  Some of you have some very creative ways to use our pins and I thought I’d start off sharing some of these stories.  I also wanted to give you a chance to post up your own comments and suggestions.  Our customers have been a great source for ideas / new designs.  Now when that idea strikes you at 2am – you’ve got a place to post it and get feedback from the pin community.