I am officially the worst when it comes to knowing where my keys are. I am constantly losing them. I put them down and 30 seconds later, they’re gone. In an attempt to try to help mitigate this ongoing frustration, I thought I’d make it easy on myself and dedicate a single spot where I would always place my keys.
Of course, since this is the Nom and I love getting my hands dirty with DIY projects, the best way to make sure I had a single spot for my keys was to make it myself! And, speaking of ‘of course’ moments…of course, it had to include bats and skulls because…well, why not?!
The whole project cost less than $15 and took about a day to make which means it’s cheap and easy…two of my favorite words!
To make your own DIY bat key holder, you’ll need:
- 1 wooden photo frame
- Plastic toy bat
- brass hooks
- Decorative brass picture frame corners
- Flat back skulls
- Black spraypaint
- Piece of decorative scrapbook paper
- Scissors
- Spray adhesive
- E6000 glue
- Rub and Buff in antique silver
- Small old paintbrush you don’t mind ruining
This is a project I’ve been planning on doing for quite a while, so slowly, over time, I collected things I thought would look good together. I found the wooden frame at the local craft store off-season last year for about $3.00. The glass that usually protects the photo was missing which wasn’t a big deal as I wasn’t going to need it for this DIY anyway. There was also a pretty big chunk out of the corner of the piece of wood that held the photo to the glass from the back but because I knew I was going to recover it with scrap paper, I figured it wouldn’t be a problem.
I also grabbed the brass photo corners and my toy bat from the craft store at the same time.
The skulls were left over from another project I was doing using resin. Whenever I work in resin, I always have a few extra small molds on hand to pour any additional resin I might have mixed up into. Because of this, I had four small skulls just hanging around that turned out to be the perfect size for this project. You can absolutely substitute any decorative items you might have around for this project and don’t need to venture into resin pouring if you don’t want to. Plastic Halloween toys are always a great way to embellish a similar project and I have an entire drawer of nothing but plastic creepy crawlies, bugs and bones for just this reason!
The first thing I did was paint everything black using spraypaint. I gave my frame, my bat, my brass picture corners, my hooks and my skulls two good heavy coats. I then set those aside to dry.
While they were drying, I cut out my scrapbook paper to the same size as the piece of wood that would be seen through the center of the frame.
I gave both the paper and the piece of wood a good coat of spray adhesive and then made sure to really smooth down the paper on the wood, making sure I didn’t end up with any air bubbles or pockets. I then trimmed the excess paper down to size.
By now the spraypaint on the frame and embellishments was dry. I used some E6000 glue and glued them down where I thought they looked the best.
I put a brass corner piece into each of my four corners at the edge of the frame and then repeated that on the inner frame as well. The skulls were placed around the center of the frame in each corner.
I measured out along the bottom and added in my key hooks, spacing them out far enough that I was able to get four in without it being too crowded.
Next, I just put my scrapbook paper covered backing piece into place and secured it using the original frame clips.
Using some more E6000, I glued my bat to the frame. I made sure to adhere not only his back but the edges of his wings as well so they wouldn’t droop.
At this point in the game, I felt like there was a lot of black on black going on and was concerned some of the details were being lost, especially on my brass corners and my bat. To help make them pop, I used my old paintbrush to give key pieces like my bat and the skulls as well as the corner pieces a light coat of Rub and Buff in antique silver. Just lightly brush it on and then rub it off with a soft cloth and that’s it!
Look how nicely it accented my bat’s wings and features!
The Rub and Buff also made my skulls and corner pieces really pop!
And that’s it! I hung my new DIY bat keyring holder up right next to the door at my office so now as soon as I come in, I have a place to put my keys (can you guess which set is mine?!)!
The hooks are also substantial enough that when Lucifur, the Lord of Barkness comes with me, I have a spot to hang up her leash as well.
And that’s it! How do you help keep yourself stylishly organized?
🙂
