A couple months ago I was making some gifts for family and friends, and wanted to make a paper quilled cat keychain. I did a google search for some inspiration and found these adorable cats made by Larisa:

paper quilled cat keychain

These looked so cute and customizable!  Plus she has an in progress photo so you can see a little better how to make it.  Click here for the page on her blog with the details!

With keychains I worry about the design being handled a lot, banged around, etc.  Even if you apply a sealant it is much more delicate than a typical keychain.  So I decided to insert it into a blank acrylic keychain for strong protection.  I didn’t get any great photos of the cat I made, as I forgot to take photos before I inserted it into the plastic, and the lighting wasn’t very good either.  But you get the idea! I chose colors based on the colors of the cat of the friend that I gave this to.

paper quilled cat keychain

Be careful when buying acrylic keychains online.  You want to make sure you get the ones that have a depth to them.  Most are just flat, made for inserting a photograph or other picture.  Just a few are made to insert charms, quilling, etc.

 

The keychain I used is not currently for sale at Custom Quilling Store and I can’t find it on Amazon either. I googled around, but I can’t find it elsewhere either.  I’ll keep looking and try to remember to update this post if I find it elsewhere! It’s a pity they are hard to find!

At Custom Quilling Store you can get this fancy one from Quilled Creations which looks fun! They also come as lockets for necklaces.

Keychain Diamond Round 167

 

If you are looking on Amazon, be careful, as most there are just made for putting photos in. I couldn’t find any acrylic ones that had a depth to them on Amazon. You can find the fancy Quilled Creations keychain, though, and some similar ones:
          

 

The depth for the acrylic one that I used is 1/8″.  But the face of the cat has two layers.  So for the head I used all narrow pieces of paper, while for the body I used 1/8″ width.  The two layers of narrow paper fit just perfectly.  Whew!  For the narrow papers I used grey and silver grey from Lake City Craft, as well as black, white, and yellow. For the body I used the same grey shades as well as black and Steel Guitar from Little Circles. Speaking of which, just check out how many shades of grey you can get from Little Circles!!!  One of these days I’ll have all the Little Circle colors.  For now I have a few, and I love how they give me more shades to work with overall.

paper quilled cat keychain

For the whiskers I cut narrow paper in half, though I wish I could have cut it even more narrow.  It is so tiny, but it looks wide in the photos!  I should have taken a photo of it in my hand.  Of course if you made a larger cat, the whiskers would look thinner by comparison!  The biggest strip of paper I used was for the body which was 6″ long.  The rest were 3″, 1 1/2″, or even shorter.

paper quilled cat keychain

Thanks to Larisa for the cat pattern!

Have you made any keychains?

Stick around, there is lots to see here!

  • Click here to view free paper quilling tutorials!
  • Click here to view paper quilling tips and tricks!
  • Click here to view a list of places to buy quilling supplies around the world!
  • Click here to view some of my own quilling projects, with tips so you can make your own if you’d like!

*All products and supplies mentioned in this post I purchased and/or made on my own.

*This post contains some affiliate links (amazon and Custom Quilling), and some non affiliate links.  If you purchase products through the affiliate links I get a small percentage (at no extra cost to you!).  I only link to products that I believe in and/or love to use myself.  Thank you for supporting my blog!