Hi! I recently bought a 58mm button pin making machine, meant for metal pins. Its recommended paper weight is listed as 127-159 g/m².
The issue is, I'd really love to make pins with a matte or velvet type of finish, the ones that are nice to touch and not glossy. But I can't figure out how.
I can't find a mylar protective film that's matte. I've thought about laminating the sheet with button designs using matte sheets or pouches, but I've never used a laminator before/don't have one right now, and I've also heard that the final effect could end up too thick/not bendable enough to be properly pressed into a pin. Some blog advised to put two sheet of graphic into a laminator pouch back to back, then cut the edges off to separate them, but I haven't seen anyone use this advice.
How do you get matte/velvety (but still protected) pins? Would printing them with some special technique, and not using additional plastic at all, be a better idea than trying to use a laminator?
I'm also guessing that when a box of laminator pouches list its thickness as X, I should divide it by two if I were only laminating one side, or is that the thickness of one of the sheet?
Also an off topic question - when I use my machine (regular hand operated button maker with two die and a lever) does it matter how fast I press the lever? Like, maybe the first press to attach the picture to the pin's top should be faster, but the next press to combine the top with the pin's back should be slower? My manual said nothing about speed, but I feel like it could matter.
I'd be super thankful for any advice! I plan to mostly make pins for myself and friends, so I won't be making thousands of them, if that changes anything.