Custom Patches for Kids’ Backpacks and Clothing | AD
*This is a collaborative guest post
As a child, everything is exciting. Almost everything is new; there’s so much to learn and so little hardship. I remember being a child and being enamoured with the idea of leaving my mark everywhere. Carving my name on school desks, leaving stickers everywhere I go, putting patches that encapsulated my personality on my clothes, and generally leaving my mark in every way that I could. Thus, today’s topic: custom patches for kids!
Where Do Patches Come From?
According to the earliest known records, embroidered patches originated in China between the fifth and third centuries BC. The Chinese repaired, patched, and tailored clothing using various sewing techniques, which led to the insertion of beautiful stitching patterns. Other cultures, over time, started incorporating patchwork patterns and designs into fabrics, clothing, tapestries, and other items.
Fast-forward a few thousand years, and patches today are produced with strong plastic backings, robust threads, increased stiffness, and methods to avoid fraying and unravelling. You can even design and create your own custom patches, and many people use them for 100% style purposes rather than to fix worn clothing.
Why Do Kids Love Patches and Stickers So Much?
If you’ve ever been around a child with stickers, you know – they absolutely adore them and will stick them anywhere they can. The fridge, their bedpost, their mirror, on themselves! Patches hold, possibly not exactly the same, but a very similar level of fascination. But why?
Perhaps it’s because children love anything that displays their personality. Perhaps it’s because many teachers use stickers in school books and during class as displays of praise when their students do well. Maybe it’s simply because children are able to find complete wonderment in the most mundane of things.
Whatever the reason, it’s a fact: most kids love patches.
Upcycling Possibilities
Now that we’ve unpacked a few of the bounteous reasons why kids love patches, let’s revisit the original use of patches: mending clothes.
Incorporating custom patches into your kids’ wardrobe will be fun for them, of course, but it also has some benefits for the planet and possibly your wallet. Kids love to mess around. If there’s dirt, they want to roll in it. If there’s a tree, they want to climb it. And if there’s a way to rip their clothes, they will find it.
Custom patches are a good way to mend minor tears and issues with your kids’ clothes without having to be a master sewer or buy a whole new item of clothing.
Additionally, if your child starts to get bored of a particular jacket, or their school bag, or that pair of jeans that they’ll definitely fit in for another three years, custom patches can be a real lifesaver.
Children love to identify themselves with their clothes. Make your kids’ wardrobe new again by sticking some customized patches that they’ll love onto tried and tired clothes.
Tickle Your Kids’ Imagination
Encouraging an active imagination in kids is ideal. Children’s social, emotional, artistic, physical, linguistic, and cognitive development are all supported and enhanced by imagination; these are essential life skills that kids carry into adulthood.
Most importantly, drawing and designing custom patches will be a fun activity for them. They won’t even realize they’re picking up key life skills because they’ll be having so much fun!
There you have it, folks! From one mother to another (or father or guardian or curious reader), think about incorporating some custom patches into your kids’ wardrobe to fix, upcycle, and individualize your children’s clothes. Not only will it be fun for them but it could also be excellent for their imagination!
