Destination Disney- Pin Trading

My friend Heidi at Reviews and Reflections is asking questions about pin trading for this week's Destination Disney topic.  My kids LOVE pin trading, so this was a topic I couldn't pass up.  Here are her questions:

•Do you (or your kids) trade pins?

All of my kids are into pin trading.  In fact, that is their greatest disappointment with our passes expiring-the "other park" that we are getting passes for doesn't do pin trading-at least not that I know of. 

•Where/How do you store your pins?

Storing our pins...the girls have hats with bands on them that they put the pins on.  Mimi bought hers at Animal Kingdom and it came with pins so that was a great deal-a hat and 6 pins for $25-minus 10% passholder discount! 

Sari had a denim hat and I took fleece and made a band to go around it and stitched it down every inch and a half or so (basically where the fleece changes color).  She can pin a pin or two in each spot. 

The BEAUTIFUL thing about the hats is that the pin backs are protected and so they tend not to fall off.  If they do though, the pin and/or back falls into the brim.  The girls have never lost a pin.

Then there's the boys. I made them bags to keep their pins on AND store the things we take to Disney regularly (i.e. water bottles, a sandwich, a snack). ) I made my nephews bags too and Bam Bam uses his at Disney). The bags are flannel, and roughly 6x9ish with a flap that folds over to close it and a long strap so they could be worn like a messenger bag. I intended them to keep the pins on the flap, again so that the backs were not rubbing against their bodies all day long and therefore falling off. They worked GREAT...until TJ took his off on Thunder Mountain (why I will NEVER know) and put it in the storage compartment, and then forgot to get it at the end of the ride. The next guest suddenly found themselves the owners of an almost complete collection of Lanyard pins. It was a SAD, SAD night!!! Scott recently stopped bringing his-I suspect the last time he "cleaned" his room he stashed it somewhere and can't find it, of I would have included a much better picture than the ones below of TJ's now lost bag.

•Do you have a favorite pin or set of pins?

TJ loves the ones that look like pin lanyards and has the whole collection.  The girls tended toward princess/fairies.  Scott likes the pirate pins.
•Do you purchase pins in the parks or elsewhere?

Mimi bought her first pins with her hat, but with four kids who don't have expendable income I had to find another solution.  I feel like a traitor, but ebay was my best friend!  You can buy large lots of pins for an average of about $1 a pin including shipping!!!.  I used them as incentives/rewards for doing work around the house or homeschooling achievements, and that worked really well for us.  It was also great to just have random pins that the kids didn't buy themselves because they weren't attached to them and were happy to trade.  There were days I SWEAR we traded with every cast member we saw!

•How long have you been doing pin-trading and how did you get started?
Since Mimi bought her hat, which she did with her birthday gift card 2 years ago.

We have loved pin trading.  Especially since Cast Members HAVE to trade with you.  The kids love the challenge of seeing what each CM had to offer, and it really helped them learn to approach and speak to strangers respectfully (only with Cast Members-we didn't try trading with just random strangers unless they initiated it) and make eye contact and use good manners so that was a happy bonus.