You can use your buddy in many different ways you can clip the keychains to a bag, a belt loop, a lanyard, your car keys or even just the hem of your skirt or pants. Customers have suggested to us pinning the buddy pins on the inside of their sleeve or pocket so when children are at school or grown-up people are in business meetings they can have it with them as a hidden support that only they know about. You can also use your pins on a bag, lanyard pencil case, hat or just straight on your clothes. Often mums and daughters wear matching pins so when they’re apart during the day, they know they are thinking of each other. The main goal behind emotional support buddy was to create a non-verbal language between anxious people that could see each other wearing an emotional support buddy and know that they are a safe space and that they both feeling the same way and hopefully make the world a little less scary. Whether You’re Wearing your buddy in a subtle way, or in a more open way your buddy will remind you to take care of yourself and focus on the things that you need to have an empowered day.

The buddies are for anybody who needs help with their mental health and self-care or struggles to be brave and could use a little extra support. They’re for boys and girls, but a majority of our customers are female. I suspect because I am female and I’ve designed it based off what I would like, we have a group of girls who are  tweens, adolescence, to late 20s, caring mums and grandparents, as well as professionals like teachers, occupational therapist, and people in the mental health field.

It is also for people who have a unique sense of style and appreciate the buddies cute aesthetic, wanting to add an extra bit of flair to their outfits.

As a child I would bring plushies with me everywhere and on my first day of university I had my bag filled with them to help me feel more comfortable which left my university supplies out in the cold. We created emotional support buddies as an alternative to stuffed animals, creating keychains and pins with cute friendly illustrations that smaller, more discreet, and can be more practically taken places to provide comfort and support. As well as being able to take many buddy’s with you on an adventure as a pose to just one stuffed animal.

When we first started manufacturing our keychains we tried out a few different styles and discovered that the heart shape was easiest to open and use as well as it fitting in perfectly with emotional support buddies theme of self love and self care 

We’ve chosen purple because it’s a neutral colour. And, purple, represents creativity, independence, peace, magic and whimsy. It is associated with bravery as people receive the purple heart award when they injured in the line of duty. Purple is traditionally a colour of royalty, reminding us to treat ourselves kindly, because we are important. There are many reasons why we chose purple as our main colour, also, including that a lot of my childhood toys are purple so it feels comforting and safe to me which is what I want to emulate with my emotional support buddy, brand. 

We have designed our backing cards with self care in mind as well as reducing unnecessary waist. Our backing cards have prompts on the back correlating with each buddy so you can create a personalised self care plan to refer back to knowing, what motivates you, what helps you feel brave, what makes you feel comforted and loved, and what you can do to add a little more magic and fun into your day.