Hogwarts House Resin Keychains

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Each year in July I try to share some Harry Potter Projects, and this year I am almost out of time but I want to squeeze a couple in before the end of the month. I had a whole week of Christmas in July crafts planned, followed by a whole week of Harry Potter crafts, but then Covid hit our family and knocked me out for a few days and messed up the plans I had for the end of the month. So I cut the Christmas in July a little short with only 3 projects, and will do the same with the Harry Potter projects. 

For project number one I wanted to try a new to me craft. My oldest daughter has been begging me to try some resin crafts with her. She has seen things people make on Instagram and wanted to try some of her own projects. A few months ago I picked up a resin crafting kit so we could give it a try, but I was a little intimidated by it so it just sat in my craft room for probably a month before we finally tried it out. 

We finally used it a few weeks ago to make some stuff and the idea for this project popped into my head as I was making some little keychains for the first time. I thought it would be fun to make keychains in house colors using a combination of alcohol inks, mica powders, and glitter. 

I picked up a letter mold and a few additional dyes, and we made some more keychains. This time using the letter molds to make the first letter of each house in the house colors. The vision I had was to add the main house color to the top of the letter, clear resin to the bottom, and some glitter in between in the other color for that house. I am still learning how to get the different colors and additions to work the way I want so it didn't turn out exactly how I imagined, but pretty close. The Ravenclaw and Slytherin turned out the best, or at least the most like I was envisioning. 

I added little tassels in each house's main color that were part of an acrylic keychain set that I had leftover from another project. It was a lot of fun to try something new and to see how they turned out. We made other letters too, with the leftover resin, so this isn't really a Harry Potter specific project. I just used specific colors and letters to get the look I wanted. But even if you aren't a Harry Potter fan this would be a fun project to try. With school starting up soon you could make a cute little initial keychain to hang on a backpack in whatever colors you want!

How to Make Hogwarts House Resin Keychains

You will need:

• Craft Resin -
• I used this kit from Sam's Club that came with the resin and hardener as well as a variety of glitters, alcohol inks, and mica powders
• This kit on amazon is the same brand and is a similar kit
• Mixing cups and sticks- I used the ones that came in my kit
• Small cups for mixing colors
• Silicone letter mold (I bought mine at Michaels, but I can't find the exact one online, this one on amazon is similar and comes with keychain hardware)
• Alcohol inks in red, blue, green, and yellow
• optional: mica powders in red, blue, green, and yellow
• Glitter in gold, silver, and black
• keychain hardware (small screw eyes and keychains, mine were included in the kit I used)
• keychain tassels
• gloves

Instructions:

Follow the instructions with your resin to mix it up to prepare for pouring into the molds. Be sure to follow all safety precautions, use gloves, well ventilated work area, etc. 

Pour small amounts of clear resin into small cups to mix in color using alcohol inks, mica powders, or both. I used alcohol inks for all of the colors, but I added mica powder to the blue and green as well, just because I had it in those two colors. I like the look the mica powder adds, but didn't have it in all of the colors. 

Pour the colored resin into the top half of the letter mold and pour clear resin into the bottom half. 

Add glitter to the center section, in between the two colors. 

I added a little bit more clear resin to the top to make sure all of the glitter was covered.

Let the resin harden for the required time according to your resin instructions.

Remove the hardened resin from the molds.

Screw a screw eye into the top of the letter.

Attach the keychain to the screw eye.

Attach the tassel to the keychain.