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Giant Sparkly Button Keyring

This is the second of my button key rings. I made it with ThermoMorph (the stuff I used to make the little Ring Dishes

See this Amazon product in the original post

I have these old cookie cutters that used to belong to my Nan.

They are kind of rusty so I don't use them for food any more but they come in for craft projects now and again.

For more detailed instructions on using ThermoMorph check out the ring dishes post here, where I took a few photos of the process, what I found worked, what didn't etc.

I melted about a tablespoon of the ThermoMorph and pressed it into the 5.5cm cutter. Then I pressed the 4.5cm cutter into it centrally upside down to make a dent.

Before the ThermoMorph set I used a cocktail stick to make 4 central holes and another at the top for attaching to the keyring.

Then I let it cool and set.

Next I painted it with a couple of coats of gold spray paint. At this point I nearly abandoned this idea as it suddenly looked a bit lot more lumpy that I wanted, however not one abandon anything too quickly, I put it one side for a day or two waiting for inspiration to hit me!

I was actually making this at the same time as the little ring dishes and whilst playing with that idea I covered one of the bowls in glitter. It came out really well so out came the Mod Podge and glitter again and the giant button got the sparkly treatment too.

It needed 2 coats of glue and glitter to make it really sparkly and then another coat of Mod Podge to make sure it doesn't drop glitter wherever it goes! After each layer of glue and glitter I used a cocktail stick to keep the holes in the button clear.

I like how the glitter makes the slight lumpiness ok - does that make sense?

To finish I added a ball chain keyring through the hole at the top. 

I was thinking of trying to make this kind of keyring out of clay or a fimo type product originally. This ThermoMorph stuff is really lightweight though so the keyring is not heavy at all. It's also pretty tough, you could drop this without fear of it cracking or breaking.

If you fancy having a play with ThermoMorph you can get it from Amazon. It costs about £15.99 ($18) for a 500g tub. 

See this Amazon product in the original post

It seems quite expensive for a tub but I've made loads of stuff with it and barely made a dent.

I have 2 other button themed keyring ideas that you might like too:

If you had a cute button mould I think this would work even better. The lovely people at Button and Paint made some and they came out pretty cute. Claire from Claire's Crafty Creations also used Thermomorph in moulds and her lovely results can be found here.

I'll be linking up this project at all these lovely link parties

See this gallery in the original post