You can make a keychain with only 3 simple steps and the best part is that they are totally customizable. Let's get crafting!
I love an easy tutorial and let me tell you these keychains might take the cake. They are the perfect project for faux leather beginners and make an excellent handmade gift. I was shocked by how fast you can put these together and you can make them customizable to any font or SVG file!
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Materials and Tools Needed:
- Cricut or Silhouette cutting machine - Now, I used my Cricut Explore Air 2 and the fine point blade so I think all machines can cut this material which is great! If your machine can't, my suggestion is to make a template out of paper and then hand cut your faux leather layer.
- Faux leather sheets - the ones I used are excellent however, they are small so they do limit me in terms of size but the good news is they worked either way! You can also opt for a different fabric if you want, I just wanted to work with faux leather.
- HTV - I am using politape but any brand will work and you can layer this on your project! I used white, yellow, and pink for my two keychains.
- I used a fabric grip mat and painters tape - I highly suggest this for faux leather.
- Weeding tools - these are to weed your HTV
- A heat press - I am using the mini and this works great for these kinds of projects.
- A pressing mat to iron on
- Fabri-Tac glue or something similar if you are gluing the two sides together.
- A keychain ring or key chain FOB link - I used these FOB wristlet hardware pieces and they worked great!
- A teflon sheet - I highly suggest this for HTV on faux leather to prevent any melting.
- Optional but helpful: hot glue for holding your faux leather into your key chain FOB hardware.
- A pair of pliers or similar to clamp your keychain hardware.
Cricut Design Space Set Up
Now, you can use your own design for your DIY keychain but I am using these daisies from Creative Fabrica - you can grab a free trial here if you want to check out their site even more! I love CF because it has a ton of fonts, graphics and SVGs! You can customize this keychain truly with any design so please use your creative rights!!
You will upload your SVG file and design it to how you want. I linked my daisies in a tower, aligned them and then welded so they were one piece.
Next step is to create an offset of the major piece of the SVG file (this is going to be your faux leather piece for the keychain).
After this, I grabbed a rectangle and sized it to my keychain FOB wristlet size - it will hook into a piece that is 1 inch by .45 inches.
I sized by whole keychain design down from the original size to about 5.5 inches high and 1.2 inches wide. Then I aligned the rectangle and the offset at the bottom and I welded these together. This back piece will fit right into the keychain link. Make sure to check for any small holes by utilizing the contour feature (this is mainly for the faux leather backing because cutting a lot of small holes can become an issue with faux leather).
Once everything is welded and sized properly, you can then duplicate and mirror/flip your image for a front and back.
If you want to make a loop keychain, you can rotate one side of the key chain and align it on top of the other. Again you are going to weld these two together and check for any small holes.
I used the faux leather thin setting and the everyday iron on setting to cut my images out with the fine point blade!
When cutting the faux leather, I suggest moving the leather in slightly and taping down with painters tape on all four sides. This will help secure it. I also opted for a fabric grip mat but you can also go with a strong grip!
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Assembly of the DIY Keychains
Again, this is an EASY DIY keychain, truly it only has 3 steps so they are quick to go together and make great gifts especially if you are in a pitch in terms of time!
First thing, you need to do is your HTV on the faux leather. I used my mini easypress on the lowest setting which is between 255 F and 295 F. So just opt for a lower setting so that you don't "melt" the faux leather. I also opted to double back on my teflon sheet to protect my keychain. Do light pressure evenly for about 10-15 seconds. Too much pressure might cause divots in your leather and iron on so just be careful and patient with this process.
Next, glue your pieces back to back if you did not make a loop key ring. I found that putting these together with the fabritack worked really well and made a nice thick material. I first went down the center of my own DIY keychain then back around the edges of the keychain to really seal it together.
Last, you will attach your key ring/keychain link. For mine, I placed some hot glue into the hardware bottom so I could stick my keychain design into it and it would grip on and give me both hands to work with to clamp the keychain down.
If you got the same keychain hardware as me, you can clamp these down with some pliers (I barely could do it with my fingers so they are pretty sturdy!) and they have two teeth inside to keep that fabric or leather in place.
AND THAT IS IT! What an easy craft - am I right?
You can make these for literally any occasion with any of your designs and they make the perfect gift or addition. Mother's Day you can do flowers, Father's Day a tie, for a dog lover you can make a bone, or even make your name with an offset. It's amazing stuff! This is an easy was for you to get your feet wet if its your first time making anything with faux leather or making your own DIY keychains!
Thank you for crafting with me!
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