How to Make Your Own Swiss Army Inspired Key Holder

I’ve always hated the idea of keychains. They make noise when you run, it’s bulky, and worse of all, the keys scratch everything in my bag.

Then I learnt of a key holder that’s designed like a Swiss Army Knife. You can insert keys on both ends of the key holder and unfold each one out just as how you would unfold a blade from a Swiss Army knife.

It’s a pretty cool idea. The keys don’t scatter all over the place, and they certainly won’t scratch your things.

But there is one problem with this design. It looks too much like a Swiss Army knife!

You have no idea how nervous people get whenever I’m in the lift with them, taking out what looks like a swiss army knife from my bag and grasping it in my hand. For the next couple of seconds, the atmosphere gets really tense in the lift. People would just run out the moment the lift door opened, out of fear for their lives.

I since stopped carrying the KeySmart key holder to avoid any misunderstanding.

Since then, I set out to make my own. I loved how the keys were held tightly in place, and covered, so that it would scratch the items in my bag. But I needed one that didn’t look like a swiss army knife.

Here’s what I made in the end:

Turns out, this is really easy to make.

Here’s what you need:

1. A strip of leather, or any other lovely material that’s not flimsy. (You could always recycle a worn leather bag)

2. A screw rivet. The length of the rivet depends on how many keys you wish to insert. I got one that’s about 1cm long from ArtFriend.

3. Keys, they should all be flat at the head.

Assembly:

Step 1: Cut the leather strip to an appropriate size. I cut mine 16cm x 3cm.

Step 2: Punch two holes on each end of the leather strip. I punched the holes about 1.5cm away from each end.

For symmetry, you should fold the strip into half and mark out the position of the two holes, to ensure that the strip is aligned later.

Step 3: Insert one end of the screw rivet into the first hole, and insert the keys.

Step 4: Fold the leather strip over, insert the other side of the screw rivet, and screw the two ends of the rivet together tightly.

You now have an elegant leather, Swiss Army-inspired key holder!

I’ve been using this for almost a year, and it has been great.

If you have a lot of material on hand, feel free to explore other designs.

If you have very sturdy materials, you may consider making a double-sided key holder as well.

Have fun!