In a small studio in northwest Bend, artist Delia Paine, 47, is showing her support for Barack Obama in her own way, with buttons she began making in July through her business, Via Delia.

After she made a last-minute decision to go to Denver and hawk the buttons at the Democratic National Convention, orders have been rolling in for thousands more.

“I’m not traditionally that political,” Paine said recently, but neither is she planning to make buttons supporting Obama’s opponent in the presidential race, John McCain.

“I have had people ask me if I would make McCain buttons,” Paine said. “My answer is that’s definitely not something I would do.”

Dennis Tooley, a delegate to the Republican National Convention and member of the Deschutes County Republicans, said Thursday he did not know any local McCain supporters making campaign memorabilia.

At the Deschutes County Fair in August, a mother and daughter sold “NObama” name tags that they had made at the Deschutes County Republicans booth, Tooley said.

“I haven’t see this much energy in an election for a while now,” Tooley said.

Making the Obama buttons is both an artistic and small-business endeavor, Paine said. In addition, “there is an aspect of energizing the campaign and bringing (people) to the discussion table,” Paine said.

Paine began making decorative buttons about 2½ years ago, she said, with patterned paper but no logos. Then she began overlaying a black “Bend” logo on the paper, a design that she currently sells in the form of buttons and magnets on a regular basis to Newport Avenue Market, Cascade Cottons and Bend Bungalow.

She uses a wide assortment of paper for the backgrounds of the buttons and magnets she makes, including 1940s wallpaper, vintage embossed foil, and paper from India and Japan.

Recently, a friend asked her to create a few buttons with “women over 50 for Obama” on them, and she started working with the Obama logo. The popularity of her current Obama button started when she pared down the design and took it to the Deschutes Democrats booth at a Fourth of July celebration in Drake Park.

An officer with the Deschutes Democrats and delegate to the Democratic National Convention, Pat Ackley, of Sunriver, purchased buttons to hand out to the rest of the Oregon delegation.

“She had a whole basket, and I looked at them and I kind of went crazy,” Ackley said Thursday. Ackley ended up giving buttons to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Oregon Gov. Barbara Roberts and U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

“I understand Michelle Oba-ma’s brother wore one when he introduced Michelle on stage,” Ackley said.

Paine was outside the convention with buttons in an improvised container and pinned to her hat, selling them with a peddler’s license she obtained from the city at the last minute. Back in Bend, her husband, Matt Paine, 38, stayed up making buttons until 4 a.m. for several nights and sent her a box each day by FedEx, he said.

As Matt Paine pointed out, they have a narrow window to sell the buttons before the presidential election on Nov. 4.

Delia recently purchased an industrial button-making machine for about $9,000, and already it is almost paid off, she said. Before, Paine was using three manual button makers.

So far, Paine estimated she has made about 4,000 buttons.

Some of the larger orders have come from an Obama campaign office in Sacramento, Calif., which recently ordered 500 more buttons, for a total so far of nearly 1,000, Paine said.

Jo Souvignier, a volunteer at the Sacramento office, said she had personally purchased about 40. “Each one was different, and they were very, very popular,” Souvignier said. “We ran out; then we got some more. And now we don’t have a single one.”

Paine has also received an order from the United Steelworkers union in Pennsylvania, and many requests from individuals.

Paine’s buttons are sold at the Deschutes Democrats office in downtown Bend, and she has information about them on her Web site: www.viadelia.com.

Those seeking McCain buttons can visit www.goptrunk .com.