The Most I've Ever Paid For A Keychain

(Note: This post has been in draft for a while and is now a little outdated, even more so after last year's trip to Walt Disney World. But I didn't want the work I put into it to go to waste, so I decided to upload it anyway.)

When it comes to buying keychains, I'm pretty much a cheapskate. I rarely pay more than a dollar for a single keychain, at least nowadays. If I remember correctly, back when Basic Fun Inc. was at its peak I was easily shelling out between five and seven dollars apiece for their Barbie keychains and their mini board game keychains. But the last time I bought something in that price range was when I got my World's Coolest Polaroid camera keychain.

(Note: This statement is no longer true. See my Walt Disney World Vacation post.)

In fact, if I hadn't wanted that Polaroid keychain so badly, and if it hadn't been a similar value to my old Basic Fun keychains, I don't think I could've justified the cost to myself. So, $6.99 is pretty much the maximum price that I'm willing to pay for a new, unused keychain. That is, until now.

I fell in love with this notebook keychain the first time I saw it. The cover is made of leather, and the pages inside are stitched into the spine, rather than being glued.

I found the keychain at a little shop called East Meets West. It's the type of place that sells incense, dreamcatchers, and dragon sculptures. My Dad, who has a rock and mineral collection, also likes to look at the store's assortment of stones and crystals.

This style of keychain was available with a number of different cover designs, all of them having some sort of fantasy motif. I specifically remember a dragon design and a pentagram design. However when I looked at the price tag, I went into sticker shock. The cost was $9.99 plus sales tax, for a single keychain. I couldn't justify spending that on such a small, frivolous purchase. But when and where was I ever going to find something like that notebook keychain again? That's when it occurred to me that I might have another option.

As I mentioned in a previous post, one of my sisters likes to go to the local Renaissance fairs. I'd only been to a Renaissance fair once, and the experience was off-putting for me thanks to the number of costumed performers who came up to me out of nowhere and tried to involve me in their routines. However I knew there were a lot of vendors and craftspeople at these events, trying to sell their wares. Maybe my sister could find a similar keychain for me at a lower price the next time she made an excursion.

I showed the keychain notebook to my sister and explained that I was hoping she could find me one for less money at the next Renaissance fair. My sister told me that she had seen similar keychains at the Renaissance fairs, but that they were priced higher there than what the store was charging. Even after hearing this I still managed to find the willpower to put the keychain back on the rack. But deep down, I think I knew it was just a matter of time before I bought one.

The next time my family was in the area I went into the store, just to look. At least, that's what I told myself. I immediately looked for the rack with the leather covered keychain notebooks. It had been moved since the last time I'd shopped there, and there were a lot fewer keychains on the display. I was hit with a new feeling of urgency. If I waited any longer to buy one of these keychains the store might sell out before I could get one and they might not restock them. I felt like it was now or never, so I bought one.

I'm not sure why I picked the unicorn design cover. Like I said before, there were a lot fewer keychains when I got back to the store, so the cover options were also more limited. Maybe it has something to do with seeing The Last Unicorn film too many times during my childhood. Regardless, I don't think I'll be spending $9.99 on a single keychain again any time soon.

(Note: Famous last words)

Signed, Treesa

Other Uses For Photo Keychains (A DIY Project Showcase)

The appeal of photo keychains seems to be that they give people a way to carry pictures of their loved ones with them wherever they go. However in order to stay portable, photo keychains must be small. Therefore, the pictures that go inside them must be equally small, sometimes smaller than the standard 'wallet' size. Trimming down a photo to fit inside a keychain, while also making sure that the subject of the photo stays properly centered, can be frustrating. I find this is especially true for frames that have heart-shaped 'windows'.

Over the years, I've bought a number of photo keychains that I thought were interesting or pretty. Most of these keychains were still empty until recently. I just wasn't up for the challenge of trying to find photos I could fit in them. Then one day I was at a flea market, examining yet another photo keychain, when inspiration struck. That past Christmas I had personalized some photo ornaments to use as gifts, filling the frames with patterned paper and other, flat embellishments instead of photos. What if I took what I'd learned on that project and applied it to my photo keychains?

My first attempt to adapt this idea used the same photo keychain that I'd been studying at the flea market. The keychain 'frame' is made from silver tone metal, with the words "Forever and Ever" engraved on the back.

This inscription led me to go with a 'love' theme for the project. With this theme in mind, I pulled out a sheet of leftover Valentine's Day stickers. The stickers were on the older side, and over time they'd actually become fused to the backing sheet. However the artwork on them was so beautiful, I just couldn't bring myself to throw them away. For this project, the fused backing actually ended up working to my advantage, since it let me use the sticker without having to mount it on a separate piece of cardstock first. I just used the piece of clear transparency that came inside the frame as a template to trim out one sticker with the attached backing. Then all I had to do was slip the sticker with the backing inside the frame and slide the transparency into place over the sticker to protect the image.

Since this particular photo keychain is top-loading, the keyring helps to hold the design in place.

This next project was a little more challenging, since the blue, faux alligator skin frame has a heart-shaped 'window'. This time I decided to use patterned paper from my scrapbooking and papercrafting stash, instead of a sticker. So I rummaged through my box of paper scraps, trying to find something that would coordinate with the frame. After pulling out several different papers that I thought seemed promising, I slid out the piece of clear transparency that had come with the frame and laid it on top of each paper, trying to get an idea what the different parts of the designs would look like inside the frame. I finally decided to center my design around a flower with a blue center that I thought coordinated nicely with the color of the frame. Using the piece of transparency as a guide, I trimmed around the flower, then slid my patterned paper square into the frame.

It looked okay, but the design still needed something. After some thinking, I pulled out a pack of clear stickers with quotes printed on them. After trimming the word "smile" off the end of a quote, I reached through the frame's heart-shaped 'window' opening and positioned the sticker word on the patterned paper. After the sticker was in place I slid the piece of transparency back into the frame on top of the patterned paper. I later decided to sandwich the patterned paper between two pieces of clear packing tape, for added durability.

The photo keychain pictured above is referred to as a 'Sparkle Sphere' on the tag. There's a price sticker from a store called Zany Brainy on the back of the tag. I remember this store very fondly from my childhood. I especially remember the Carousel Kids wooden 'paper dolls' and the wide variety of toy food that the store had for sale. I also remember how disappointed I was when the store closed.

The 'Sparkle Sphere' keychain is actually made in two halves that twist apart. Each half has a chamber filled with water and glitter. When a photo is sandwiched in between the two halves, it results in sort of a snow globe effect. This design also means that the keychain is double-sided, with space for two separate images.

Playing off of the snow globe idea, I selected some stickers based on the Disney movie Frozen that had come free with a mail-in offer. Free is always good, but by far the best part was that the stickers were already circular. I just had to trim them down a sliver so they would fit inside the keychain. I used one sticker of Olaf and one sticker of Elsa, adhering each sticker to thin cardstock to make it easier to work with. After the stickers were trimmed, I placed them inside the keychain back to back.

This next photo keychain is also double-sided.

For the front, I took a Santa Claus design postage stamp that I'd saved from an old Christmas card and, after carefully steaming off the remaining piece of the envelope, I adhered the stamp to a piece or red cardstock that I'd trimmed to fit the keychain. The stamp wasn't quite wide enough to fill the keychain on its own, so the red provides a nice border. Besides, I needed to mount the stamp on a separate piece of paper anyway, both to make it sturdier and to give me a blank canvas for the back of the keychain.

Speaking of the back, here's how that turned out. The holly design was paper pieced by stamping the design onto the red cardstock, them stamping it again on a separate piece of dark green cardstock and cutting out the leaves. In hindsight, I think the holly might've looked better if I'd used a lighter shade of green cardstock.

This photo keychain was purchased for me by my sister K. at Dorney Park. Planet Snoopy was one of Dorney Park's attractions, and the back of this keychain actually features a Snoopy design that looks like it was etched into the metal. Unfortunately, thanks to the metal's shiny, mirror-like finish photographing this design has been impossible for me. Regardless, I thought it would be fun to put a picture of Snoopy inside the keychain. So I cut one out of the Sunday newspaper. Once I'd trimmed the newsprint to the correct size to fit in the frame, I carefully sandwiched it between two pieces of clear packing tape, to give it some much needed durability. An interesting side-note, this frame is actually held closed with magnets, one of which already came loose and had to be glued back into place with extra strong craft glue.

This picture frame keychain featuring Goofy with a life preserver actually ended up in a box of 'spare' keychains that I was planning to sell. I couldn't remember where I'd gotten it, and at the time I had no idea what to do with it. However, I decided to take another look at it when I was in the midst of trying to fill my other photo keychains. I created the Finding Nemo themed insert for this keychain by applying a rub-on transfer to a piece of cardstock for the background, and then adhering a Nemo character sticker to the center. As usual, the insert was sandwiched between two pieces of clear packing tape to make it more durable.

I think the picture frame keychain shown above is a good example of why my photo keychains stayed empty for so long. In order to fit a picture in this frame, that picture would've needed to be cut into a circle. Combine that with the small size of the keychain and I would've been tearing my hair out if I'd gone the traditional route and tried to put a photo in the frame. Instead, I cut a circle from pale purple cardstock and used a small flower stamper and several colors of ink to create a background. The word "Pretty" was spelled out using tiny letter stickers. I wanted to go with a beauty theme for this project because there's a small mirror on the back of the keychain.

For this last example, I thought the design of the combination flashlight/picture frame mimicked the look of a handheld video game. So I chose an oversized Pikachu sticker for the image. The sticker was actually a little too long for the frame. But this ended up being a good thing, because the sticker also wasn't quite as tall as the opening for the picture. So after carefully measuring and cutting a piece of cardstock to the right dimensions, I peeled off the sticker and centered Pikachu on top of the cardstock. Then I trimmed the edges of the sticker, using the excess to cover up any remaining exposed cardstock.

I hope you enjoyed this 'DIY Project Showcase', and I hope I've inspired some of you to 'think outside the frame' and experiment with new ideas for photo keychain inserts. Whether you decide to use some of my suggestions or come up with your own, I'd love to hear about your creations in the comments section.

Signed, Treesa

Another Goodie Box From Heathersmoo

I recently received another fun goodie box from Heathersmoo of Keychain Of The Day on Livejournal. Heather's parents had gone to Hawaii before the whole Corona virus pandemic, and she'd had them pick up a couple keychains for me while they were there. Heather also included some additional items in the package. So, let's take a look.

Here are the two keychains from Hawaii. I love the sea turtle hatching out of the egg. I think I mentioned my fondness for turtles in a past post. I find it interesting that although the keychain was purchased in Hawaii and says Hawaii on it, according to the tag it was manufactured in the Philippines. The turtle and the egg are both made from wood.

The fish keychain seems to be made from some kind of leather. According to Heather, this keychain is modeled on Hawaii's state fish, which is known as the humuhumunukunukuapua'a. (From what I understand, the Hawaiian language has only 13 letters, and as a result a number of native Hawaiian words have repeating syllables.)

Heather also sent me a small notepad from Canada (notepads are always handy things to have around), as well as a handmade kumihimo keychain and an adjustable bracelet/anklet. Kumihimo is a Japanese braiding technique. In the note that Heather sent with the package, she told me that the colors she chose for the bracelet/anklet were inspired by Thin Mint cookies. As a former girl scout, I think this is a fun idea.

And I guess that about wraps up this post. Thanks again Heather! If I end up going on vacation this summer I'll try to return the favor. Although with the current state of the world a summer vacation doesn't seem likely.

Signed, Treesa