mom starting from scratch: repurposed key Necklace

Yesterday was a "non-daily declutter" day for me as it was packed full with speech therapy for my 4 yr old, a root canal (that took over 2 & 1/2 hours!) for my 12 yr old, and getting ready for a "Girl's Night" in the evening with a group of young women whom I have been mentoring since they were young teens. They're now in their early 20's, working, going to school, getting married, having babies....it's pretty amazing.

The day before the girl's night my husband did a little decluttering himself and got rid of a bunch of old keys from a key chain. He half jokingly. half mockingly handed them to me and said, "Do you want to repurpose these?" Har. Har. Sounded like a challenge to me, so I stuck them in my pocket and pondered it as I went about my day.

Now remember, I am trying to both learn how to declutter AND repurpose lately, so my rule is, if I don't know what I want to use it for RIGHT AWAY then I don't keep it. I don't have a basement, garage, or storage room and with six people living in a 1,400 square foot space, you can imagine NOT a lot of extra closet space.

But the phrase, "Key to my heart" popped into my head and it fit perfectly with what I was going to be sharing with my awesome young women the next evening. I could make a key necklaces for them as a reminder to guard their hearts!

I forgot to take a before, but you can picture just regular, goldish coloured keys.

STEP 1:
Spray painted the keys with some red spray paint I had at home. I gave each side a couple coats. I got impatient and didn't let one side dry thouroughly before I flipped them and did the other, so I ended up having to peel newspaper off the back of one side.

Keepin' it real....I did this on my kitchen table with the patio door open. I didn't use enough newspaper on the table. Spray paint really.... ummmmm... sprays.

STEP 2:
Stick on heart shaped "bling"sticker that I picked up at Michael's.

STEP 3:
Thread with ribbon. I bought a spool of black ribbon from Michael's and my homestay student also gave me some soft lace ribbon she had in her craft stuff. Tie a knot around the loop in the key so that it hangs straight and then tie a knot at top.