Magnapins & Brooch converters- a guide to getting more out of brooches

Hello All,

As you may know if you are a regular reader, I am rather a fan of brooches.  In my myriad 5 Brooches posts over the past few years, a few of you have confessed to liking the idea of brooches but not liking the ideas of  making holes in your clothes or finding it hard to wear them.

I agree with this problem. Some clothes, it doesn't seem to affect them, particularly if they have a wide weave, but with certain items, the holes you create as you stab a hole into the garment with a brooch pin seem huge! Also, positioning them right is also very difficult whether you put the brooch onto the garment when you are or are not wearing it.

To this end, I thought I'd share a few solutions I have discovered to this problem.

Magnapin

The first one is a magnetic brooch fastener called Magnapin.  It is made by a US company but over the last year or so, they have been imported to the UK by some online retailers.
It comes in a box and the magnet is extremely powerful. It is about the size of a British 5p piece.

It comes in two pieces- the magnet and the metal part which has a hole through which you post the long pin of your brooch.  The hole has some sort of foam inside it which ensures your brooch doesn't rattle in the hole, it is a snug fit.  You can see below, that you open your brooch back pin and insert it through the hole. You will encounter a little resistance. Push it to the middle and then make sure the flat side is facing outwards- you can then fasten your pin as usual.  Position it where you want to on your garment and then hold the magnet the other side of your garment until they 'snap' together.

For larger,heavier brooches, they suggest you use two magnapins, but I've not actually tried this at all yet though I do have two.

Where to buy:
In the UK, you can purchase Magnapins from Daisy Park - they retail at £13.95 or  from Kitty Kat Uk for £11.95. I got my two on special offer so they were cheaper. They are slightly cheaper if you purchase direct from Magnapin in the US but they didn't used to ship to the UK.

Any problems with them? 
Well, occasionally, the magnet doesn't sit flat, it wants to tip and touch the brooch back that is attached to the brooch, so it sits diagonal. I think this might be because the metal of that type of brooch pin is magnetic and so the magnet is attracted to it. This is occasionally annoying but for the most part is not a problem. On this shiny material below, it slipped a little too when I knocked it around after a day.

Excuse the double chin- but you can see this is quite a substantial sized brooch and it held fairly well at my collar. This one did slip a little when knocked but otherwise, they hold really well.

Brooch Converter

Sometimes though, you just don't want a brooch- perhaps your fabric is delicate or you can't get it in the right position or the material is too patterned for you to notice the brooch.  Instead, the second solution for wearing your brooch is using a brooch converter to make it into a necklace. 

You can see that they are very simply a tiny thin tube with a loop attached. You simply post your brooch pin through the thin tube the way you did with the Magnapin. There is no sponge cushioning it and making it a tight fit which I think causes the problem mentioned below.*

The two types allow for brooches that are fitted to their brooch horizontally, as pictured below, or occasional vertical ones.

Where to buy:
I purchased mine from somewhere I have avoided since I discovered they don't pay their taxes.  If I cannot get it elsewhere, I will buy something from there, otherwise, I will always try to find alternatives which is usually no problem.  Yes, I am talking Amazon- I bought the vertical brooch converter from Beadaholiques here for £2.19 and their horizontal brooch converter for £2.89 here

Any problems?
*Yes- I have found that certain brooches, particularly heavy ones, big ones where the pin is quite far away from the top edge of the brooch or ones with a long pin really tip forward or backwards and just don't sit right and I gave up on wearing them with the brooch converter. Still, one of two of them have worked quite well.

You can see the horizontal converter in use here with this heart balloon brooch. It does rock a little because the tube doesn't have sponging inside but this brooch pin isn't too large so it largely sits straight.

I've not tried the vertical one yet, but I will add to this post when I do.

What do you think?

If you are a brooch wearer- would this revolutionize your brooch-wearing? If you are not, what do you think of the ingenuity in these products?

xxx

P.S. I'll say this anyway, even though you know it. I was not given these products by any company wanting a glowing review- I just purchased them myself in order to protect my clothing and extend my brooch versatility usage.