A few years ago I was in a home design store in Baltimore called Red Tree with my wonderful friend, Bronwyn (belated birthday shout out!), and while trying to talk myself out of buying half of the store, I saw some very clever and artsy key organizers. A simple concept really: a painted board with hooks in the bottom of it to ensure that you never again arrive 30 minutes late to an appointment because you were turning your home inside-out searching for a misplaced key ring that turned out to be (duh) in the freezer, or under a cereal box, or whatever other bizarre place you may have absent-mindedly placed them. I am famous for this by the way — I have had to replace my entire set of keys four, yes, four times because I misplaced them and was never able to find them again. For serious. In a stormdrain somewhere, or in a landfill, or in the lair of the evil elf that steals half of my socks from the dryer, are four sets of my keys, to this day, still waiting to be discovered….
How was that for a tangent?! Jeez, anyway, back to Red Tree. So I stood for a while, inspecting the key organizers, turning them over in my hands, and hemming and hawing over whether or not my broke-ass could justify spending X-number of dollars on something that, despite my track record with lost keys, I deemed to be a non-essential item, when suddenly it occurred to me that I could make my own key organizer.
Well, it only took me about three years, but I’ve finally gotten around to doing it. I decided to add a letter compartment to the organizer, because in addition to being the master of misplaced keys, I am also the queen of unsent letters. I’m pretty sure that I still have thank you notes and birthday cards that I wrote back in 2003 being used for bookmarks or breeding mold in boxes in the attic…
Anyway, this is a fun little creative project, and is really quite easy, and would be great to do with kids.
What You Will Need:
– A scrap of plywood or piece of board — I used a leftover piece of plywood from an ill-fated attempt to build a bookshelf but if you don’t have any pieces of wood laying around, the folks over at your local hardware store would probably be happy to cut a piece for you. Also, if you are not going to be making a letter holder in addition to the key organizer you can use a much narrower piece of wood than I did.
– Sand Paper – 3M makes an assorted grit combo-pack that is awesome
– Paint
– Whatever image(s) you’d like to use. These can be cut from books or magazines, or any other paper source. Old botanical drawings would be really cool, or you could draw your own image. I cut some of my images from an old poster I had and the rest from a beat up Alphonse Mucha book. The letter box is covered in a sheet of Art Nouveau wrapping paper.
– Scissors and/or X-acto/utility knife
– Super glue or wood glue
– Polyurethane
– Screw Hooks
– Cardboard (only if you are doing the letter box as well as the key organizer – an old shoe box will work just fine)
– Thumbtacks (smooth head or quilting)
– A thin chain or sturdy twine to hang your organizer — I used a broken necklace!
Directions:
1. Sand your board. Start with an abrasive paper and finish with a fine or superfine to create a perfectly smooth and splinter-free surface.
2. Paint your board. Apply multiple coats if desired. Allow to dry.
Steps 3 and 4 only applicable if making a letter holder. If you are only making a key organizer, without the letter holder, skip ahead to step #5
3. Cut your cardboard into the shape pictured below. Fold over flaps and fit to the bottom of your piece of wood. You may have to trim the cardboard again to ensure a good fit.
4. Cover cardboard with decorative paper, wrapping paper ends over the edges and securing with super glue. Or, you can just paint your cardboard. Or do a collage over it…
*Be sure to fold your cardboard before gluing on the paper to ensure the proper fit
5. Select the images you wish to use and cut out with scissors or utility knife
6. Do the layout with the images you are using
7. Once you are certain of your layout use super glue or wood glue to adhere them to your board
8. Cover your board with the glued image(s) with several coats of polyurethane, allowing each coat to dry before applying the next
9. Fit your letter holder to your board
10. Use thumbtacks to secure the perimeter of the letter holder, spacing them evenly every 2-3 inches
11. Screw hooks into the bottom of the letter holder/board, making sure that they go into the direct center of the board’s width so that the wood doesn’t splinter
* If you are using plywood you should be able to screw in the hooks directly. If however you are using a denser type of wood you may need to drill holes into your board before being able to screw in the hooks
12. Screw in the rest of the hooks, spacing evenly
13. Admire your work — you’re almost done!
14. Secure your chain, twine, or string to the back of your board with thumbtacks. Use at least two tacks per side.*
*If you are using twine or string be sure to tie a knot in each end so that the tacks don’t pull through
15. Decide where you want your new, nifty, handmade key and letter organizer! It can be hung using a single nail.
theindiehomemaker 