Laminated Cards

One of the first things I made for my little girl, Abi, was not even sewing related. I created a little book of family pictures on a keyring. She still has it in the car, and she's always loved it. I used to sit in the back and flick through everyone and tell her who they were. Part of the reason I make it was because we were living in London and my husband's family were in Australia. In the run up to our first visit and after it I wanted her to remember who they all were, keep them in her mind. Now we live in Australia I use it to remind her of my family and her friends back in the UK. This is what it looks like:

But you don't have to do family photos, the last ones I did for my niece and nephew were about 64 animal photos. I am probably going to make some more for my kids as they loved helping me create them. So whatever you choose it's really simple.

Step 1: Get the photos ready. If you are doing family ones try and get good headshots, take them off facebook, crawl through old photos. I took a lot from my wedding as they were good quality and everyone looked nice :) When you are choosing also remember you might want to try and keep to all portrait or all landscape, otherwise once they go on the keychain they won't all be the same way.

Step 2: Try and get the photos all the same size, then I used Canon Easy-Photoprint to print them. You could resize and put them all in say powerpoint but it'd probably take a while and be fiddly. The photoprint makes them all the same size without any of the hassle.

Step 3: Get printing. I do mine a few pages at a time, worry wart that I am. Make sure you have enough ink and ideally a good printer. If you don't have a printer, your local library, post office or newsagents should be able to print them off for you for at a cost.

Step 4: This is the step I always forget, so don't worry if you do. But once they are printed write on the back, either the animal names, family names, whatever it is you have pictured. If you forget this step then just get a sharpie pen and use that on the back after you laminate. And when you write on them be aware you will be cutting these up so stick to your photo area.

Step 5: Now get them laminated. If you think you might be doing a few it could be worth buying a laminator. Otherwise again your post office can probably do this for you.

Step 6: Cut out your pictures, try and make them all the same size. You can use scissors but a guillotine will give you a cleaner and more symmetrical edge. If you have already remembered to write on the back - well done! - and make sure when you cut them up you are not cutting through any of the writing.

Step 7: Once you have them all cut out and know how big you need your keyring, go and buy it. For my family one I had a keyring with a little soft toy or but for the animal one I just bought a large clip open ring from the local stationers. Then added a little fun keyring I found in the $2 shop.

Step 8: Add them all on, wrap and give!

See completely simple and a great homemade gift that will get plenty of mileage. You can try lots of different ideas for this, it's really flexible. Apart from family and animals you could do colours, shapes, flowers, fruit and veg. If your kids are older maybe try doing general knowledge questions and answers, questions one side and answers on the other. Guess the celebrity, Guess the film from famous lines or opening lines. Or if they have a big test coming up make studying for it a bit of a game, I always found things stuck better if I was enjoying myself.

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