This year we kept my daughter’s 8th birthday low-key. With her summer birthday we had big plans to take a roadtrip that would be all about celebrating her, so we kept the party beforehand minimal. With her 5 friend limit, it made things really easy on me to personalize party-themed items for each kid. One of my favorite DIY party favors I made were these super easy key chains with shrink paper!
Cami’s party theme was “summer vibes” and after finding this great summer print (which you can download for free below), I knew I wanted to incorporate it for these key chains.
I purchased the shrink paper (making sure I got the correct paper for my ink jet printer). Using my Cricut, I uploaded the print into Design Space and used the shape tool to find this rounded “tag” shape. I sized them to be 4″x6″ which allowed me to fit two to a page. On each tag I put each girl’s name, using the offset feature to make the names stand out more. Once each tag was personalized I sent it to print, then cut.
IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A CRICUT: No sweat! You can A. upload the print into a free design program like Canva (where you can also find this tag shape) and add text on top, then print. Or B. Print the print out on the shrink paper, hand cut your shape after printing, then hand write your names.
Printing on the shrink paper is pretty straight forward. On my printer settings, I did select photo paper and found that the print was very vibrant that way. Because the shape was so simple, I ended up just cutting it with scissors. You will notice that the paper is thicker than regular paper, so I thought it was a great idea to use my leather hole punch to cut out the hole for the key chain. It wasn’t until after I got it all out of the oven, that I realized my hole also shrank! Duh! This made the leather hole punch that much more valuable to have to cut through the hardened key chain!
Pre-heat your oven according to the instructions on the the shrink paper package. While the oven heated up I lined a baking sheet with parchment paper so that nothing sticks, then laid out my cut out key chains. Your key chains will end up shrining to about 20% of the original size!
Carefully place the baking sheet in the preheated oven and watch closely. The shrink paper will curl up as it shrinks but will eventually flatten out. It takes about 3 minutes for the shrinking to complete so keep and eye on it. When I removed them from the oven I put a couple heavy books on top for about 30 seconds to make sure everything laid flat.
Once the key chains we completely cool I used my leather hole punch to make bigger holes before attaching the key ring.
And finally, I added this cute flamingo puff pendant to the key chain tags! This whole project took me about 30 minutes to do, ya’ll. I am looking forward to making more DIY key chain party favors like this and also figuring out fun things to make with shrink paper.
