Mother's Day Gift - Key Chain

Every Mother's Day I like to give the grand mothers a special gift from my daughter. Her first year I typed out a little poem and added her painted foot prints in the shape of a heart, last year I typed out I Love You with a clip art flower on some sturdy card stock and then let her water color to make it special (she was very into water coloring at the time). And this year my sweet husband realized that we could take a skill that she's good at, putting beads on a pipe cleaner and turn it into a special gift - enter the personalized key chain! This is a great last minute gift that you and your kids can make too!

As with all good crafts it started off with a trip, or two, to the craft store. Our first store while it carried lots of jewelry making supplies and beads unfortunately did not have the all important letter beads. Luckily Michael's had my back, and we bought everything we needed there. Again, smart husband did a quick check to make sure we had enough of the particular letters in the package and checked them until he came to one that did, we were making two key chains - one for Grammy and one for Grandmo. Make sure to count your letters and if need be, buy a second package of letter beads.

My supply list was:

• Letter Crafting Beads
• Nylon String
• Key Chain Clasp
• Decorative Beads (make sure get ones with a large enough hole for the nylon string)
• Decorative Tags that say "Made With Love"

I started by laying out my key chains till I was satisfied with their pattern.

Then I cut the nylon string about 8" longer than I needed. I also melted the ends of the string using a lighter so they wouldn't fray.

I realized that I needed something at the bottom of the key chain to make sure the beads didn't fall off, so the "Made with Love" tag got promoted to this position. I tied a knot on the end making sure to leave enough tail to tuck into the first two beads.

Carolyn was easily able to string these beads together and delighted in the fact that she was making these for her grand mothers.

Of course, even though I laid them out in order the moment I wasn't looking, because I was tying the knot on the next key chain, she got things a little mixed up.

The good news is, she didn't mind when I took off the out of order beads and started passing them to her to do again.

After I tied the knot at the top of the key chain I had a lot of extra string so I threaded it through as many letters as I could.

Then I trimmed it down and melted the end again, and tucked it into the last two beads.

And that was it, in less than 20 minutes we had two completed key chains for Mother's Day gifts!

They are a nice size, not too big and chunky but will look nice with their keys.

They will make a nice presentation in these jewelry boxes.

 I hope both grand mothers like their gifts!

Carolyn was so proud and excited that she made these! I know she'll be delighted to tell them all about their personalized key chains.

Wishing all the moms, grandmas, great grandmas, stepmoms, and honorary moms a very Happy Mother's Day!