Make Your Own Inexpensive Promo Key Chains

I've been looking at promotional key chains for a while now, because personally I love collecting key chains and find that they're always put to good use. But the plastic key chains offered by promo places charge setup fees and imprint charges, and require bulk orders to keep their printing costs low. I just can't see spending $200+ for items that people will just walk off with and throw away later. So I discovered a cheap alternative that will allow me to use color images for my key chains and create only what I need at any given moment for promotional use.

Items required (and cost):

• "Design Your Own" key chain kit. You can purchase these through wholesale dealers such as Oriental Trading, where a dozen (12) key chains cost only $3.95 plus shipping. Look for the key chains that allow you to add photos or your own designs. Oriental Trading has photo key chains, DIY color/design key chains, and scrapbooking key chains as well, in a variety of sizes. The ones I used in this project were the rectangular key chains that are roughly 2" x 1.5" in size.
  
  
• Images to use on the key chain. Authors, use your latest book covers -- you can make a limited amount of key chains without committing to one design. Bands and musicians, use a high resolution image (300 DPI or greater) of your logo or album cover. Artists, let your artwork shine! Or, you can can download stock photographs online at places like Dreamstime or iStockPhoto for about $1 an image.
  
  
• Microsoft Word. Of course, you can make these without it, but the template I created opens in Word. Click here to download the template (virus free, I assure you). If you don't have Word, you will need a word processing program that allows you to create text boxes or tables whose cells can be fixed in size.
  
  
• A color printer OR a print shop where you can print the images.
  

To Create Your Key Chains: