In Person Meet-Up With Heathersmoo: July 2022 (Part 1)

 This past July, I was fortunate enough to meet face-to-face with Heathersmoo of Livejournal, known for her "Keychain Of The Day" posts. Heather had already made plans to visit some family members in Pittsburgh over the summer, and she asked me ahead of time if I'd mind her stopping by on the way to see me. Now, Pennsylvania is a deceptively long state, so my hometown is technically nowhere near Pittsburgh. The fact that Heather was willing to go out of her way just to meet me in person really means a lot.

In the time leading up to Heather's visit, I got to work gathering up and packing the various keychains and other small items that I'd put aside for Heather for Halloween (her favorite holiday), her birthday, the winter holiday season, etc. I figured that, if I packed everything up neatly and gave it to Heather when I saw her, she would be set for the rest of the year and I wouldn't have to pay rising postage costs on multiple, holiday themed packages.

Heather brought a number of fun goodies with her for me as well. Some of them were things that she had promised to make for me or to set aside for me, while others were a complete surprise.

Like these knitted flag keychains. Heather, remembering a previous blog post that I'd written about my ancestry, handmade this set of small, knitted keychains, based on the national flags of every country that makes up my combined heritage. Since I'm not as familiar with my ancestors' home countries as I probably should be, I had to refer to online images when photographing these, just to make sure that I didn't have any of the flags upside down.

While we're on the subject of knitting, Heather also sent me several emails discussing the possibility of making me a knitted scarf. I got the definite impression that all of her family members, her friends, and anyone else who has been part of her life for long enough eventually receive a handmade scarf. Heather had been emailing me for suggestions of what color schemes and/or patterns I might like. Unfortunately, I had a lot of trouble coming up with a scarf concept that I felt would work for what I had in mind. I wanted something that was Disney inspired, but I didn't want the Disney influence to be too obvious. If I wore the scarf out, I wanted other Disney fans to recognize it as the signature colors of a particular Disney character. But I didn't want strangers 'not-in-the-know' to brand me as a Disney dork. I considered having Heather create a blue and black and yellow pattern based on Dory's coloring and markings from Pixar's Finding Nemo films. But Heather was worried that the end result would look "too collegiate". In the end, I gave my approval to the idea of using Figment colors, which was something that Heather had suggested.

For those of you who might not know, Figment is a character from the Journey Into Imagination attraction at Epcot in Walt Disney World. The little guy has quite the fan following among Disney parks enthusiasts old enough to fondly remember the original, 1983 version of the attraction. There have been a couple, controversial refurbishments to the ride since then, starting in 1999. But Figment is still prominently featured on a lot of official Epcot merchandise.

Heather not only made me a scarf in Figment's signature colors. She also made me a matching hat and coordinating fingerless gloves. The hat is loosely knitted, which is nice because it means that, if I ever make it back to Walt Disney World in Orlando, I can wear the hat at the actual theme parks without worrying about getting too warm in the Florida heat. Also, I've learned from experience that fingerless gloves are extremely useful when browsing outdoor flea markets in autumn. The weather then can be too chilly to leave my hands exposed to the elements, but it's very difficult for me to pick items up to check for maker's marks and/or small areas of damage if I'm wearing full gloves. Fingerless gloves are therefore the perfect middle ground. That's a little shopping tip for any of you who buy keychains secondhand.

In addition to the other knitted goodies, Heather also made me these two knitted keychains. One is in 'Figment' colors, and the other is predominantly purple, my favorite color.

Since Heather is an Orlando local, she picked up this set of Disney-themed, souvenir Orlando Florida keychains for me. It is my personal belief that one can never have too many Disney keychains, and Heather knows this about me.

Heather also knows that I do papercrafts, primarily handmade greeting cards, as well as some scrapbooking. In late April, I emailed Heather to request a favor regarding one of my papercrafting projects. I told her how I'd been personalizing some partially filled Disney parks autograph books that I'd bought secondhand, one of which was a combination autograph book and photo album. Since I wasn't the one who'd originally collected the character autographs, I didn't have any corresponding photos of the characters to put in the album. So I'd been filling the photo sleeves with character postcards instead. I'd asked Heather if she could keep an eye out for a couple of specific character postcards, to help me finish up the project, since she lives much closer to 'Disney territory' than I do.

Although Heather wasn't able to find what I was looking for, she did get me a Disney-themed Florida postcard, thinking I might be able to use it in my papercrafts. I actually have a growing collection of Disney postcards, organized and arranged in standard photo albums. So I'm happy to add this one to my collection. I really like the cheerful colors, and the window frame style grid layout.

To continue on the Disney train of thought, in February of this year, Heather told me about a McDonald's Happy Meal promotion featuring Disney Stitch plush toys that could easily be converted into keychains. I don't really keep up to date with fast food toys anymore, despite there sometimes being interesting keychains in the assortments, so this was the first I'd heard about the Stitch promotion. Heather promised to give me "an extra" that she'd gotten. This plush is number 4 from the assortment, "Sippin' Stitch". There appear to have been 8 in total to collect. Heather even taped a spare split ring to the back of the packaging before giving it to me.

(To be continued...)

(Signed, Treesa)

Words To Live By ('Message' Keychains)

 Keychains can have many uses. They can be used to hold your keys, of course. But as previous posts on this blog have shown, they can also serve other purposes. They can be used to remember a special vacation, or to give you a glimpse of a destination that you've never seen in person. They can be used to remember the special people in your life, either because a certain person gave you the keychain or because something about the keychain makes you think of that person. Keychains can also be used to advertise your interests, your fan loyalties, your heritage or your hometown pride. In other words, keychains can be used to send a message. And that's the topic of today's post - keychains with messages on them.

These keychains have a lot in common with bumper stickers, or the more modern equivalent of bumper stickers - car magnets. Like bumper stickers and car magnets, these keychains have something to say. They can be funny, snarky, or inspirational. They can use humor to get their message across, or they can play it straight. They can also cover a broad range of topics, such as social trends, gender, politics, religion, the list goes on and on. However, the primary purpose of these 'message' keychains seems to be to reflect the keychain owner's personality.

Judging by their identifying marks, the majority of the 'message' keychains in my personal collection have come from the following three companies: Laugh Tracks, Kalan, or RPP Inc. My online research was unable to dig up any information on Laugh Tracks, and the only somewhat relevant reference source I could find for RPP Inc. was a photo archive on a Button Museum website showcasing some 'button' style pins that RPP Inc. produced. Kalan, however, is still in business, specializing in "trendsetting" novelty and gift items.

As I started organizing my keychains by company for photos, I decided to see if I could pick out any patterns in the types of messages used by the different manufacturers. I eventually realized that any patterns I did notice wouldn't necessarily tell me anything, since the only 'message' keychains I have in my collection are ones that fit my personal tastes. This means that my seemingly random sampling of keychains probably wasn't so random after all, and therefore wouldn't necessarily reflect the manufacturers' full product range. Still, I thought it would be fun to see what reoccurring themes might crop up in the types of 'message' keychains I'd collected over the years.

The keychains shown in the photos above are all marked Laugh Tracks. I seem to have more 'message' keychains from Laugh Tracks than I have from Kalan and RPP Inc. combined. Also, I couldn't help noticing that several of these Laugh Tracks keychains have a bit of a feminist bent.

At least half of the keychains in the Kalan product assortment above seem to reflect a rather negative attitude. I'm a bit of a pessimist by nature, so I guess that this shouldn't really surprise me.

As for these RPP Inc. keychains, two of them deal with the subject of shopping, two have messages relating to keys, and the first one in the bottom row is completely random, if you take into account that I've never lived in New York. I found that particular keychain at a discount book store years ago, and I bought it simply because I thought it was funny.

Speaking of shopping, here are some other keychains with shopping related messages. The concept of 'retail therapy' is something that I'm very familiar with.

This next set of 'message' keychains uses a different construction than what I've shown so far. I bought these at a flea market years ago, and I have no idea who made them. But I like the unique way that they're constructed. They're similar to the 'button' style pins that I mentioned earlier in this post, except that instead of pin backs, these keychains have flat metal backs.

I already mentioned in my post on "Hobbies And Fandoms" that I 'dabble in' different types of crafts. The photo below shows some keychains with messages related to crafting.

I'm going to wrap up this post with some random 'message' keychains. These examples should help give you a better idea what sort of variety is available, design-wise

Considering the broad selection of 'message' keychains that have been produced over the years, it seems to me that if there's something you want to say to the world, then chances are there's a keychain to help you say it. So here's one final message for all of you.

Signed, Treesa

Birthday Package From Heathersmoo: 2021

 Heathersmoo from Livejournal, a dedicated keychain collector if there ever was one, kindly sent me a package of keychain goodies for my December birthday. Thanks, Heather! I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get this post up. I had a lot more prep work to do for this Christmas season compared to last year, since members of my extended family reinstated their annual holiday get-togethers after putting them on hiatus for the past 2 years due to Covid-19. I'm still trying to catch up on all of the projects and other things that got pushed to the back burner during the Christmas rush. So without further ado, let's bring on the keychains.

 

I absolutely love this puffy, furry, greenish-blue teddy bear keychain. The head and limbs seem to be made from some sort of pleather or textured vinyl material that is stuffed, and the body is one of those faux fur pom-poms that were all the rage for purse accessories a while back. The color is unique and fun for a teddy bear, in a subdued shade that strikes just the right balance between a pale pastel and a vibrant jewel tone. However, my favorite part of the design has to be the facial printing. For some reason the face makes me think of Bearemy, the Build-a-Bear Workshop mascot. I doubt that that resemblance was intentional though. According to the product tag, this bear was "Distributed by Kalan LP".

 

I had a lot of trouble photographing the eyes on this dog head keychain, even though I deliberately placed a white backing sheet behind the black metal to better highlight the details. I think my issues were largely due to overcast weather reducing my lighting. While I don't know enough about dog breeds to say for certain what type of dog this keychain is modeled on, maybe someone reading this post can help to narrow it down for me.

Since this dinosaur is holding half of a heart with the word "Best" on it, I'm assuming that it was part of a 'best friends' keychain set, and that Heather has the matching half. The yellow and orange color scheme reminds me a lot of Cheesasaurus Rex, the 90s era mascot for Kraft Macaroni And Cheese. The raised markings on the back of this keychain identify it as another "Kalan" product, this one made in Bangladesh.

Even though it's the first guitar pick keychain in my collection, I've actually been intrigued by this keychain's concept for a while now. Also, I'm pretty sure I've mentioned here before how much 'brand nostalgia' I have for My Little Pony, even though I'm not all that invested in more recent iterations of the franchise. The fact that this keychain is my favorite color, purple, doesn't hurt either.

Lastly, this final keychain is shaped like a silhouette of the United States and patterned like an American flag. I tend to be drawn to country and state silhouette shaped keychains, although I have no idea why. Maybe I should try accumulating enough of these keychains to do some temporary map setups to photograph. That might make for an interesting future project.

There's also an advertisement on the back of this keychain for "Patriot On-Site Services Inc" in Ellenboro, North Carolina. However, I wasn't able to find additional information about the company. The web address listed on the keychain no longer seems to be valid, and online searches got me nowhere. Such is the transitory nature of cyberspace I guess. Internet based resources frequently disappear into the ether, unless we're talking about old social media posts that you actually want buried. Then they hang around forever.

I'd like to thank Heather once again for her gift. I appreciate her generosity in sharing some of her treasured keychains with me, since it's a known fact that once a keychain finds its way into her possession it rarely leaves. So thanks Heather, and I wish you good luck with your keychain hunting in the coming year.

Signed, Treesa

This Is Halloween: 2021

 I originally intended to do a series of posts as a lead-up to Halloween this year. However, with the amount of rain and overcast weather my area has been getting lately, I kept putting off trying to take photos, so the time ended up getting away from me. Still, I did sort of promise Heathersmoo, my keychain collecting email pen-pal, that I would show off the tarot card 'Death' keychain I bought at Spencer's a while back in my 2021 Halloween post. So, here's a quick post wishing my readers a Happy Halloween.

As I said before, this keychain was bought at a store called Spencer's, which specializes in 'edgy' and 'irreverent' novelty items. The original backing card for this keychain stated that it was "distributed by Kalan LP".

As a bonus Halloween 'treat', here's a set of keychains based on that late 90s trend-setting horror film, The Blair Witch Project, a film credited with popularizing the 'found-footage' genre. These keychains were manufactured by Hot Properties! Inc., though I can't remember now what retail store I actually bought them from. I do recall that I got all four of them on clearance, after the initial hype for the film had run its course. I'm pretty sure I hadn't actually seen the movie at the time I bought these, since horror isn't one of my preferred genres, and generally I don't like going to movie theaters anyway. I'd rather wait and borrow films from the public library, so that I can watch them from the comfort of my own home with the volume adjusted to a level I'm more comfortable with and with the ability to pause the action for bathroom breaks.

I think the reason that I picked up these keychains originally was because The Blair Witch Project qualified as what I call a 'pop culture touchstone', to reuse a phrase from one of my previous posts. I like having keychains in my collection that serve as artifacts from a particular time, representing the trends and fads that helped define that point in time. Either that, or I just thought these Blair Witch Project keychains looked cool.

Signed, Treesa

My Hometown

 (Note: I had to make some slight alterations to this post, since I originally drafted it prior to the Corona virus pandemic.)

I live in a large city, with a thriving (pre-Covid) tourism industry. Consequently, there are a lot of keychains to be had that celebrate my hometown. The City Of Brotherly Love, The Place That Loves You Back - whatever you choose to call it, Philadelphia certainly has made a name for itself. And from the Liberty Bell to Rocky to Will Smith and Kevin Bacon, Philadelphia is a city of cultural icons.

Below are just a few of the keychains that I've collected to show my hometown pride.

I'm particularly fond of the keychain celebrating Philadelphia soft pretzels. I've eaten many a soft pretzel in my time.

I'll end this post with an obligatory 'Philly cheesesteak' keychain.

 

Signed, Treesa

Pound Puppies Clip-Ons (A Keychain Sighting And Review)

 

First off, I know that in general I tend to shy away from clip-ons. But just look at those big eyes and those droopy, furry ears! How could I not cave and buy one, especially being an 80s child who loved the original Pound Puppies?

To start at the beginning, just before the extended Fourth Of July weekend I was running some errands at the shopping mall near where I live when I decided that, since I was there anyway, I might as well stop in at Five Below and look around. For anyone who doesn't know, Five Below is a discount store chain that primarily features items priced at five dollars or less. Anyway, when I first saw the little cutie pictured above, I had to get him. He's just too adorable! I also have a lot of nostalgia for the Pound Puppies brand. Like a lot of kids in the 1980s, I had some Pound Puppies, and Pound Purries, plush toys, back in the day.

The $3.99 price sticker didn't hurt either. To my eyes, $3.99 seems like a great deal for something that's officially licensed, and it states on the backing card that this clip-on was actually licensed by Hasbro. It was also produced by Basic Fun, which is now a subdivision of Good Stuff, LLC. Anyone who reads this blog regularly will probably remember my fondness for the original Basic Fun products line.

According to my online research, there were 4 different Puppies to collect in this series release. The Five Below near me had more than one style in stock the last time I visited, so I could theoretically pick up one or two more if I wanted to, and if the stores in my area haven't already sold out.

Let's start the actual review with the packaging. I love the graphics used on the backing card, very retro and nostalgic. The Pound Puppy itself is attached to the card with little, plastic 'anchors' that pass through two of the paws, and also through the tail area. These 'anchors' will need to be snipped, and depending on how tight they are that could be a little tricky.

Thankfully, there was enough slack in the 'anchors' that I was able to cut them without too much difficulty, and the Pound Puppy's 'fur' is plush enough that I'm not noticing any really obvious holes left behind by the 'anchors'. The plush also feels very soft, almost velvety. The furry ears are quite soft as well. The stuffing is packed firmly and holds the Puppy's shape without being floppy. So if you prefer your plush toys on the floppy side, keep this in mind. Personally, I think that the firm stuffing works better in this small scale, especially considering how this little cutie is meant to be clipped onto something and carried around.

I was impressed that the eyes appear to be stitched on, rather than being hard plastic or worse, printed decals. The heart-shaped, Pound Puppies logo is even stitched on the Puppy's side, like it would've been on a 1980s Pound Puppy.

I'll sum up this review as follows.

Good Points:

Where do I start? From the retro packaging to the stitched logo, this clip-on pushes all the right nostalgia buttons with nice attention to detail. It also has the look and feel of a good quality, well made product.

Bad Points:

This is a minor quibble, but to my eyes the Puppy seems just a little too big to be practical for daily use, even as a clip-on and not a keychain. But then again, I've certainly seen larger clip-ons.

Final Verdict:

Overall, I'm really pleased with my purchase, even though it is a clip-on and not a traditional keychain. I'll most likely be adding a split ring to it at some point.

Signed, Treesa

P.S. I want to apologize for how late this post is. I intended to post it sooner, but family obligations over the extended Fourth Of July weekend got in the way.

Half-Birthday Care Package From Heathersmoo

 This may sound like a bit of an exaggeration, but making contact with my keychain-collecting, email pen-pal Heathersmoo through her Livejournal site has been practically life changing for me. I know I've probably said this before, but keychain collecting can be a lonely hobby. Finding someone online who shares that hobby has made a big difference for me. It's helped me feel more...normal I guess, like maybe collecting keychains isn't such an out-of-left-field pastime after all. And it's so nice to have a keychain collecting friend that I can swap duplicates from my collection with. It's also nice knowing that if I find a decently priced, mixed lot of keychains secondhand but don't actually need and/or like all of them, I can always send the extras to Heather. Although the fact that she lives in another state is a bit of a downer, since it means we'll probably never get to meet in person. Steadily increasing postage rates to send each other stuff could also be a hassle.

Over the past few months I've sent Heather several small, keychain care packages. She has been going through a rough time in her life, and I was hoping that a few keychains and the reassurance that she was in my thoughts would help to cheer her up a little. Well, Heather decided that it was past time that she returned the favor. Using the excuse of celebrating my half-birthday, she sent me a care package filled to bursting with keychain goodies.

Heather structured this care package around a zoo theme, with keychain versions of various critters, for example bears.

The bear on the end is a 'birthstone' keychain, and the color is meant to simulate topaz, according to Heather's note. Topaz can be found naturally in more than one color, with the more familiar Golden Topaz being used in modern times as a November birthstone while Blue Topaz is associated with December, my actual birth month. However since this care package was intended for my half-birthday, which would fall in June, Heather might've been aiming for that. The modern day June birthstone is apparently Alexandrite, which according to my online research looks green in sunlight but has a red tone under incandescent light.

Heather also included a flamingo keychain, stating that, "It's not a trip to Florida without them." Heather herself resides in Florida.

Other animals featured in keychain form were a dog,

a cat,

and, as Heather described them, a "herd" of unicorns. No two members of the 'herd' look exactly alike, although one of the 'unicorns' has wings as well as a horn, so it's technically an alicorn. I know some mythical creature fans can be persnickety about that.

This "pine tree" keychain, as Heather called it, was part of the package as well. I'm not normally a huge fan of sequins, but this colorful conifer is just plain fun.

According to Heather, this purple crystal keychain is an amethyst. Heather must've remembered that my favorite color is purple.

Something else that Heather apparently remembered was an email conversation that we had months ago where the topic of anime came up in passing. I mentioned, again in passing, that "anime wasn't really my thing". But I then admitted that I had been into Cardcaptors back in the day, when shows like Pokemon were still all the rage in the U.S. This pink winged keychain is the Star Wand symbol from Cardcaptors. It sort of amazes me that Heather actually remembered my Cardcaptors comment when I think I only brought it up once. I wish my own memory was that good.

Thank you so much for the generous gift Heather! When I went to bring in the mail and found a package with my name on it, it really brightened my day, sort of that 'child seeing the wrapped packages on Christmas morning' kind of feeling. I sincerely hope that the clouds are lifting in your own life.

Signed, Treesa