September 1, 2011
I made 3 buttons!
I'm adding a new feature to Buttoness! Stay tuned for the next time I update, because that's when I'll have it up (Most likely tomorrow, if not, then the next day).
Affie requests are open. I'm taking up to 5 new affies, and Kyuki is my newest affie!

August 27, 2011
I made 2 buttons!

August 25, 2011
I just realized yesterday was Buttoness's 2 YEAR ANNIVERSARY! :D I can't believe I've been creating buttons for 2 years, & Buttoness made 916 buttons, which is unbelievable. Thank you everyone for supporting me, or else I would've never made it this far! I made 20 button bases, & many of them have a shadow around the border, so you can easily get that 3D look without trying!
I made 3 buttons! I really liked the Frequent Flyer one. :)
I was really sad to find that I was taken out of the rankings at Soroptimist (yesterday) and The Faerie Compass, especially on Buttoness's anniversary! :( I hope I will get back in place by doing what I love and keep making buttons!

August 24, 2011
Made 6 buttons! Still need to make 13 more buttons to finish of the waiting list. :)

WOW, am I not updating Buttoness AGAIN? I'm really sorry for not updating, I just have other things to do.

August 9, 2011
I saw the pixel I'm using for today's update from Always, and it just made me LOL.
Requests are now closed, because in just one day, I received 16 requests! I said that was going to only accept the first ten requests, but I LIED. I accepted all the qualified ones!! I'm so glad so many people requested, but I'm also sad that I have to close requests, because I want to open them more. I'll make some buttons tomorrow.
Aww, thank you everyone who left those heart-melting comments at TLB'S Golden Sandwich Awards! I'm flattered, and I'm literally blushing right now!
I'm so glad to say that Trapped Fairytales is now Buttoness's brother site! :)

August 8, 2011
WOOHOO! I made 6 buttons, but too bad they took so long!! :/ Anyways, requests are open, but once I get the first 10 requests, I'm closing requests. So hurry! :)
Recently, my computer got a little virus of some sort (It's fine now). It kinda messed up things, and what's really weird is that it doesn't show clear and sharp pixels anymore. So that means when I see pixel text on buttons, they are kind of blurry. :/ If you see that they are a little too sharp, it's because of my misjudgement.

August 7, 2011
I'm back! It's been a while, and I'm terribly sorry about my absence! I'll start making buttons tomorrow, and requests will be open after the waiting list is cleared!
On the bright side, Foomanshus revamp is done! Please check it out! If you were an affie, don't forget to neomail me so I can add you again!
Lastly, TLB'S Golden Sandwich Awards just started, so be sure to vote for Buttoness in Best Button Site, and Foomanshu in Best Graphics Site! Thanks!

If I failed to read the rules the first time, will you give me another chance to read the rules again?
Nope. The rules are there for a reason, and come on, there are only 3 simple rules!

When will my button be finished?
Sometimes my life can be so busy, requests can be a bit slow. Other times, I can get them done the day after. I accept all acceptable requests (People who read the rules when requests are open), and I have no policy on only accepting the first few requests. I feel like everyone who took time to visit my site, read the rules, and request deserves a button.

Will you tell me that you got my request?
Sometimes, I get so many requests, I don't even bother to go through all my requests and tell the owner I received their request. The best thing you can do it check the waiting list, and if your name isn't on it, you can ask me about it.

What's the limit of the number of people on the waiting list?
I onlt accept the first ten requests, then I will close button requests until I finish most of them.

How many buttons can you make for me?
If you want more than one button, just mention it in your form. Please be prepared if I don't make you the amount of buttons you want. Also, please don't request more than you need.

Do you do redos? Do I have to use the button you made me if I don't like it?
Of course, I don't have the right to force you into using my buttons, but I guarantee that your button will not turn out "unusable". If you don't like it, I will sometimes be willing to change or redo it for you when I have the time. For most cases, I am sorry to say that I won't be able to fix you unsatisfied button.

Can I have any text on my button?
Yes! Please refer to rule #2!

White text with colored border

I'm using the button base I created with the previous tutorial.

The text is a very important part of a button. If it is not used correctly, a beautiful button can become a hot mess.

First, choose a pixel font. A pixel font doesn't have soft edges, and it made up of pixels that are all 100% opaque. Here are some suggested pixel fonts you can use:

As you can see, the last two are cuter fonts, and I would only suggest those fonts if you have the space for them on your button.

When adding text, the first thing you do is choose the right font. If possible, try not to cover the focused part of the image. In my case, the focus is on the jetsam.

Next thing you need to know is what the color of the background is where you want to place the text. On this button base, it's mostly a yellowish-orange color, and if my text is longer, I may run into the pinkish-orange rocket part. If I want to save time, I would use 04b_24, because it's skinny. But to show you how I would handle the rocket run-in, I'm going to show you using 04b03, with all letters capitalized.

As you can tell, the color I chose matches really well with the background, until the pink rocket part. I got the color by using the eyedropper () tool, and I chose the background color and darkened it.

Right now, I'm going to tell you what you should do to make the text border match the ENTIRE button, not just a specific part. Simply USE A GRADIENT! This is what I got after selecting another color that matched the front of the rocket:

See the difference? Now the text border matches whatever the background is. Also, since only 1/3 of the text goes over the rocket part, I only made the pink gradient go about 1/3 of the rocket part. You can even lower the opacity of the text border to make the border go with the background EVEN MORE, but don't do it if the background is too sharp.

Next thing I'm going to show you how to add a shadow. On Photoshop, you can add a shadow easier, but it's harder to do on GIMP, I think. xD But how to do a shadow is not the point of this tutorial. So, I added a shadow:

See how that looks really ugly? I've seen people actually use black as their shadow color when the color isn't even in the button. Because most of the background is the yellow color, I'm going to use the eyedropper tool again and select the color of the background. Then, darken it a lot.

It looks a little better, but it's still too bold. To fix this, just simply lower the opacity until it's just right. In my case, I lowered the opacity down to 20%. The opacity of the shadow depends on the background image, and your taste. Now see the result:

Tada! You text is officially done! You can take a look at the 2nd part of this tutorial for another nice text style.

colored text with white border

In my opinion, this look is harder to achieve. It usually looks better with lighter images, because it might be too big of a contrast on dark buttons.

The color of the text shouldn't be TOO BRIGHT or TOO DARK. Black can be too dark against the white border, and if you chose black because the background is black, then you should go with the white text with colored border style.

For this part, I'm going to use a light button base.

First, you need to decide what color your text should be. For this button base, the choice should be obvious, because it's all purple! So, using the eyedropper () tool, select the background color, and darken it. Be sure you don't mistaken darken with brighten, because they are completely different things. When you darken a color, the color should be moving towards the color black. So, this is what it looks like with the text alone:

It's up to you to decide whether it looks good or not. Now, make a white border.

In my opinion, the white is a little too bold. So, I added a slight, white glow and lowered the opacity of the border:

Now look at the difference! It looks much better with this soft and calm button image.

If you want, you can leave it like this (That's what I would do). But if you want to add more effects, you can always use a drop shadow. When you use the drop shadow, do not get rid of the glow. The glow is there to calm down the contrast between the white border and the dark shadow. Create a dropshadow. Use the eyedropper tool again and select the same purple you used earlier, and darken it. If necessary, lower the opacity.

See how the drop shadow doesn't overpower the calming text at all?

This look is complete! as you can see, both styles so far are great, but it depends on your taste, and the button base.

final say

Before you save a button, change the font to see which one looks best! You may be surprised at how much better (or worse) it looks. I changed the font of the purple button to handy00, because that's a very pretty font, and I wanted to find out if it matched on the pretty button.

See? I think it looks even better!

Don't be afraid to explore different styles. I'm just showing you how I do it. :) GOOD LUCK!

Some buttons need some more glamor! If you use this tutorial, you should achieve a button base that's prettier than the original image, with only the use of a few textures.

I'm going to use this image for this tutorial:

Open a 88x31 canvass (transparent or white) and paste your image. Size it down until you are pleased with the result:

Some people would just stop here and continue to add their text, border, etc. But I believe it's kinda boring to leave it like this. So, I went to swimchick and used some textures from there. I highly suggest you DO NOT use grunge textures, because they can make your button look disastrous. The first texture I used is this:

Light textures are great for buttons because they can make your button look enhanced, with a professional glow. I layered this on top of my image (I moved the the texture so only the bottom part will be used). Then, I changed the mode of the texture to screen. Screen allows you to get rid of the dark parts of the texture. This is the result I got after changing the mode to screen:

As you can see, the texture gave the button a nice pink glow. But I think it's too light and not exactly clear. So, I'm going to choose a darker texture. I chose this:

I especially love this one, because it already has the diagonal lines for you. If you use this texture, you can skip the step of adding translucent diagonal lines to your button. I simply pasted this texture on top of everything, and I changed the mode to overlay. This is what I got:

See how much better that looks? Your button is almost done. The last thing you should do is brighten up the button, and make it sharper or soften it. You can use your current program, or you can even use picnik.com. This is what I got:

I used contrast and I highlighted the image a bit. I also increased the temperature, giving the button a slight vintage look. This is what the original image and the final product looks like next to each other:

Now you are DONE! You can experiment with different textures from different sites. I especially like Nienkju's Textures and swimchick. My biggest tip is to NOT USE GRUNGE TEXTURES. Here are examples of grunge textures:

If you want proof that these will not look good, try it yourself! It will not look good. The only way these textures would look good is if you lowered the opacity of them by at least 70%.

I may delete your site without notice if your site becomes inactive or if I simply think your site isn't quite good enough. If you have me as your affie but you don't see your button here, please remove me. But don't give your hopes up, just keep getting better and better!