In speaking with the owner of a local shop who I am making a few Christmas Ornaments for as a way of generating some interest in other projects, I learned (or had reaffirmed) that one of the hottest trends right now is “hyper-local” - products that are almost niche-targeted to local audiences.
They told me that some of their hottest selling items are pillows and other indoor and outdoor decor that have the local town(s) zipcode(s) and/ or names on them, so I thought “why not give it a try?” and so i’ve done a few very simply oval keychains, but with text and zip codes, with varying fonts that tend to reflect a bit of the personality of some of the local villages.
I’ll post an update later to let everyone know whether they like them or not, but I thought I’d share the idea with this community as a means to inspire and give others a suggestion on something that would likely do well in your local community.
Hey, I lived in Hinsdale for 4 years when I was a kid! I still remember each winter they would flood the park across the street from my home to turn it into an ice rink
My wife moved to Hinsdale from Georgia two days before her junior year, and when we got married 25 years ago, we moved to Willowbrook. Found our “forever home” in Burr Ridge about 2 1/2 years ago.
what software did you use to make these? i want to make key chains to give to my son’s friends in memory of him, we lost him last year from a four wheeler accident
I used either Inkscape or Affinity Designer. Not sure which I was using at the time, but I use Affinity Designer for almost everything now.
It was really just three steps:
Engrave the text (very very easy with Designer. If using Inkscape, be sure to check the box that converts the text in the export to SVG so it shows up in the GFUI.)
Of course. Most important thing is to make sure that the last step for any one keychain is the oval cut. You can do those all as a last step, or after the other two steps for each individual keychain.
Most likely, the fastest way would be to do all of the engraving (all tags) as one step, cut all the ring holes next, and then do the cuts of the ovals.
