The release of the Barbie live-action movie has made “Barbiecore” the ‘latest fashion craze’, to borrow lyrics from the song “The Barbie Touch”, which was featured in “The Magical World Of Barbie” live stage show performed at Epcot in Walt Disney World during 1994. Considering the current popularity of Barbie inspired fashion, I’ve decided to share a little keychain DIY project that I crafted a few years back. Are there Barbie shoes lying around your house that no longer have matches? If you are a parent with young children, then there’s a good chance that the answer is yes. So, why not put those shoes to good use by making yourself a keychain or bag clip? I’m a fashion doll collector as well as a keychain collector, so I’ve found my share of single Barbie shoes in bag lots of doll clothing I’ve purchased secondhand. They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and I originally came up with this keychain idea because I had a bag of mismatched Barbie shoes that I didn’t know what to do with.
To make a keychain similar to the one shown in the photo, you will need a short piece of chain with a split ring or some other type of keychain or clip finding at the top, to use as a base. You will also need some Barbie shoes, some jump rings to attach the shoes to the chain, and some jewelry pliers or other small pliers to open the jump rings.
The easiest way to get the shoes onto the chain is by using shoes that have straps, like the light pink, solid colored high heel used in the sample keychain. Just hang the shoe by the strap using a jump ring, and then attach the jump ring to one of the links of the chain. You can fasten all of the shoes to a single, larger jump ring at the bottom of the chain like I did. Or you can hang each shoe from a separate chain link, positioning the first shoe higher up on the chain and then alternating the placement of the other shoes on either side as you work your way down the chain.
If you would like to use a shoe that doesn’t have a strap, the transparent pink glittery high heel seen in the photo is a typical example, then you will need to find something to poke a hole through the shoe, near the top, for the jump ring. Something sharp but on the thinner side, like a thumbtack or a sturdy sewing needle, could work well for this, depending on the thickness of the plastic as well as the flexibility. Some of the plastics used to make Barbie shoes are somewhat rubbery, while others are firmer. In you are very careful, you could heat the end of a long, metal sewing needle with a candle flame before poking the hole, to make puncturing the plastic easier. I would not recommend letting children do any of the shoe piercing, even without the added element of heat.
Also, be careful with the placement of your hole. If you poke the hole too close to the top edge of the shoe, you might end up tearing the plastic, instead of making a hole. If you poke your hole too far down, you might have trouble finding a jump ring with a large enough diameter to attach the shoe to the chain. If the plastic shoe seems just too hard to pierce, I would recommend finding a different Barbie shoe for your project, unless you have sufficient experience with a craft drill. In any case, once you have a hole in the shoe that goes all the way through, you'll need to thread an open jump ring through the hole, so that the shoe can be suspended from the chain.
Here’s another example of a keychain made from a doll shoe.
This shoe is from the Monster High doll line. To make the keychain, I threaded some jewelry wire through a gap behind the heel of the shoe. I then used pliers to shape the wire into a wrapped loop before attaching the snake chain with snap end.
I hope that you enjoyed this post, and that my timing in posting it didn’t come across as too ‘click-baity’.
Signed, Treesa