By
Amber Lanahan
For creative Laura Karth, the world of art and creation is interwoven in her DNA. With a sculptor mother and a painter stepfather, she was surrounded by creative minds from a young age.
“I don’t know how it started, to be honest. I just remember looking at my badge reel and thinking about how boring it was and wishing I’d had something a little more personalized,” she recalls.
Little did she know that this curious question would propel her into the world of custom badge reels, and she would become so adored by El Paso nurses that her creations would find themselves in the halls of top-ranked Mayo Clinics and fly to nurses as far as Washington state.
(A standard nurse badge reel is widely used in healthcare environments. It usually has a retractable cord that extends up to 34 inches, enabling nurses to easily swipe their ID cards or access tools without needing to detach the reel from their uniforms.)
Without intending to, Karth’s journey into badge reel creation began and would quickly evolve into something more.
Dabbling into the hobby of resin crafting and with the help of her trusted Cricut, she could design, mix, and cure custom badges that provided a pop of her fiery personality as soon as she stepped on the floor. Like moths to a flame, Karth’s nurses would continue to ask their charge nurse where she’d gotten her unique badge reel.
“I think it’s because they allow you to express yourself, ” she shares, “For example, hospitals like UMC and Las Palmas have no expression in their uniforms, they’re usually colors like navy blue, so I think these badge reels provide nurses with a little personality to what they’re wearing.”
As more nurses from hospitals placed orders for badge reels, Karth quickly discovered limitations in customizing her creations. In her search for a solution, she came across a laser cut that allowed for intricate item customization and design.
“When it arrived, I freaked out a little bit,” she shares, “It was a big investment, and I waited six months for it to get delivered. After they set it up, I started talking to myself, saying things like, ‘Who do you think you are?’ and, ‘What have I gotten myself into?’ The stand is 500 pounds, and the laser is 500 pounds. It’s a pretty big laser that takes up a third of the room I’ve set it up in. So I was a little overwhelmed.”
However, trepidation was quickly cast aside once Karth turned on the laser and got to work.
Time and again, she would fiddle with the massive machine, cutting a variety of acrylics, wood, and leather pieces to study the intricacies of what she could create. Much like a chef who remains in constant motion as they prepare the finest delicacy, Karth, too, developed a production method that would produce products of outstanding quality and quantity.
“My laser is a heavy piece of machinery. Despite all the fun things you can do with it, you can’t just turn it on and walk away. The system I’ve developed has allowed me to cure and assemble my pieces while the machine cuts out the next batch. Within my first month of having the laser, my badge reel sales jumped from 40 to 300 in a month,” she explains.
With this expedited method of development and elevated customization, Karth received a surge of orders from nurses locally and nationally. For her, this rush only served to fan the flames of her creative bonfire as she no longer found herself restrained by the design limitations initially denying her the opportunity to create custom orders.
Create custom orders she did, as badge reels quickly branched out into intricate wooden Christmas ornaments and Easter paint kits. One experience with an abstract request from a fellow hospital team member would allow the creative juices to flow.
“It was around the time I was working on these paint kits, and one of our doctors came up to me asking if I could design a kit that had princesses and looked like a unicorn threw up all over it,” Karth chuckled. “I had to take a moment and think, ‘Princesses and like unicorns threw up on it?’ Initially, I was at a bit of a loss. I even ended up completely redesigning the design I’d started with, but when I showed him the finalized product, he was so happy with what I’d created that he paid me an additional sum on top of what I’d already charged.”
Despite these successes, Karth had her share of challenges as she produced her designs.
As with every piece of machinery, there comes a time when one finds oneself tasked with the struggles of repairs and troubleshooting. For her, these instances would have her reaching out to her laser user community online or calling her laser’s repair support network.
“I was on a FaceTime call with the technician for 2 hours one time,” Karth shares. “They went through it with me step by step, even going so far as to tell me the specific tools that I’d need to use to repair the laser and get it working. They helped me understand the steps needed with my own hands should I face the dilemma again. It’s a unique machine, so you can’t just call a repair tech to come and fix it like you would for a laptop or phone. You need to know how your machine works to resolve the problems.”
While the quality of her work draws customers to purchase her creations, Karth’s consideration keeps them coming back.
She has come to know the distinct preferences of her clientele, even giving them endearing nicknames for specific design styles, such as “bougie girls” for the customers who desire a little more “sparkle.”
Karth’s understanding of her loyal clientele goes so deep that should a customer forget to request a desired detail to a design, she will have the forethought to prepare the desired detail beforehand. The materials used for her products are not to be ignored either, as meticulous trial and error over the years have allowed her to select the pieces that best complement the works she creates.
“I use a specific glue, resin, and mica powder when I make my reels, so I know what the quality control is supposed to look like for the final product,” Karth explained. “Recently, I’ve found myself looking at a new machine that will take on the role of printing and cutting my stickers and decals, a role my Cricut is currently tasked with. However, with the Cricut, I tend to have the occasional bubbling during the resin pour, so with this machine, I’m hoping to curb the amount of bubbling and, with it, faulty products.”
After reading about her journey, one would think that Karth would be well on her way to perfection at this point, but when asked about what it was like when she first started on this journey, her response was, “What do you mean when I first started? I’m still starting out! There is still so much that I have to learn, and I feel like I’ve only just scratched the surface of what I can create.”
For Karth, the box of creativity and design has only just been opened, and she aspires to continue developing her creations further as she traverses new creative paths. Never fear nurses of El Paso and beyond. She has no intention of leaving badge reels behind in search of “greener pastures.” “I love my badge reels, I love creating the little things that make people smile. My reels allow me to expand my creativity as I work on new designs that challenge what I’m already creating. So I say bring it on, send me your request. I want to take on the challenge.”
