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Keychain handler

I don't alway have a pocket to put my keys in. Or my pockets are too small and this is not confortable. Here is a simple keychain. Online, you get patterns for 4€. However, with simple observing skill, buying a pattern is irrelevant.


Introduction

Most of my pants have small pockets. When doing gardening, standing up and down, this is not very confortable when you have your keys in. With some leather leftover, I made a simple keychain handler. You can attach keys to the belt or put it on your wrist.

Table of Content

Material

Consumed

  • Leather strip: (vegetally tanned leather) 25cm length, 2cm width, 2.5mm thickness (if you want to carve the leather) or 1.5-2mm (if you just want to stain the leather).
  • Rotating carabiner
  • Snap button
  • One rivet / concho / chicago screw (select one of this option)

Tips: Select the same color for all metallic parts

Embellishment

For carved leather:

  • Knife opener
  • Metallic Stamps
  • Sponge
  • Edge beveler
  • Edge burnisher

For coloring:

  • Eco-flo Watershtein light brown
  • Eco-flo antique dye - han tan
  • Eco-flo acrylic gold

Necessary:

  • Cutting mat (unless you have a working table)
  • Hole Punches: diameter depend on the snap button and rivet.

Price

(without counting the painting, irrelevant for the project)

Total: 10.9€ without labor ! (Think about this before buying on Etsy)

Note: I am not paid for this article, these are just links if you want the full detail.

Step by Step

Pattern

Round edges

Cut the end of the strip to get rounded edges (or any suitable shape)

Carve

Carve the leather at wish. Here, this is a simple pattern:

  1. Draw a line parallel to the leather border of 2mm width
  2. Cut and emboss the line
  3. Make compass:
    • stamp a flower tool
    • Use the knife opener to create the 8 branches

Prepare the Holes

At the start, make the two most distant holes: one for the pressing button, one for the rivet (at 1cm from the ends). This are the simplest ones.

Next, make a hole for the pressing button 1cm near by the rivet hole.

Note: There are some template where the pressing button serve as a rivet. While this is more elegant, this is not recommended. First, it is hard to get a button with a large traversing pin. Next, button are not designed for that.

For the last hole, (the second rivet hole), you may need to adapt the template based on the leather thickness: if your leather is too thick, it will be difficult to get it bent within a small radius. To reduce thickness, use a dedicated razor, near the dashed line, until you get something correct.

Stain the leather

  1. Watershtein light brown for the middle

  1. Apply Antic finish when the dye is dry: put in on both sides (but let it dry before turning the leather piece).
  2. Apply the acrylic gold only on the compass star, and remove the surplus immediately (with your finger for instance)

With natural color:

  1. Edge finish black

Putting the Metallic Parts

Here, dedicated clamp are more than welcome, especially for the pressing button.

Here, I used a Chicago screw, which is easy to put when you don’t have many tools at home (However, be careful, it can unscrew itself).

Result

Full strip:

Bent:

Final result:


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