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Tutorial: Sublimation for Keychains & Luggage Tags

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I love making keychains with adhesive vinyl and my Silhouette or Cricut! What I don’t love is that the vinyl tends to get knicked and dinged up by my keys. When I set out the other day to make some keychains, I remembered that I had some blank sublimation keychains. I thought to myself that they would be a great alternative to vinyl on keychains because the sublimation printing can take getting beat up and thrown into my purse better than adhesive vinyl. Today, I’m sharing the process I used to create keychains (and a luggage tag).

Tutorial: How to Create Sublimation Keychains and Luggage Tags

  1. Order some supplies. Pick up some blank Unisub keychains or luggage tags. Unisub is the manufacturer and doesn’t sell direct to the public, however, you can pick up sublimation keychains at this link. If you are looking for luggage tags, head to this linkTutorial: Sublimation for Keychains & Luggage Tags - by cuttingforbusiness.com
  2. Grab the templates. Unisub offers templates for all the products they manufacture. I have a tutorial showing how to use the templates with Silhouette Studio in this blog post.
  3. Create your designs. Use your favorite software (Silhouette Studio, Cricut Design Space, Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, or whatever you like best!) to create some designs. I stuck to simple with my designs and used colorful themed backgrounds with some text. I picked up commercial use backgrounds from stock photo sites. Be sure to mirror your design before printing. Tutorial: Sublimation for Keychains & Luggage Tags - by cuttingforbusiness.com
  4. Print your design on heat transfer paper. Here is a link to the paper I’ve been using. (My phone number is blacked out in the photo below so thousands of people don’t call me!)Tutorial: Sublimation for Keychains & Luggage Tags - by cuttingforbusiness.com
  5. Line up your design with your blank keychain and tape it into place. I use this heat resistant tape. You will see that I made the design slightly larger than the keychain. This is referred to as a ‘bleed’. This ensures that your entire keychain is covered with your design. Be sure that no important details are in the bleed area.Tutorial: Sublimation for Keychains & Luggage Tags - by cuttingforbusiness.com
  6. Press the design. I pressed for 180 seconds at 375 degrees Fahrenheit and got great color. I used my handy little pink heat press that I talked about in this post. As a quick reminder, the keychains are metal and they really heat up in the press! Be cautious taking them out and allow them to cool before touching them.Tutorial: Sublimation for Keychains & Luggage Tags - by cuttingforbusiness.com
  7. Add the hardware. The keychains I have (martini glass, 4666 and anchor, 4731 came with a keychain ring and plastic connector) the luggage tag (flip flop, 4729) did not include hardware.

That’s it! I think sublimation makes for great keychains and luggage tags! Wondering what else you can do with sublimation? I’ve got a tutorial for jewelry at this link, mugs at this link, and a whole beginners series on what exactly sublimation is that starts at this link.

Love this project? Save the image below to Pinterest.

Tutorial: Sublimation for Keychains & Luggage Tags - by cuttingforbusiness.com

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PamT

Tuesday 22nd of May 2018

Wonderful idea! This opens up a whole new line for me! Thanks! :)

Christine

Tuesday 22nd of May 2018

Happy to share!

PamT

Tuesday 22nd of May 2018

One question: does it need to be sublimation ink or is standard inkjet ink ok?

Teresa Holton

Tuesday 22nd of May 2018

What kind of printer did you use with the heat transfer paper - sublimation printer? Which brand? Thanks

Christine

Tuesday 22nd of May 2018

I use an older model Epson that has been converted to sublimation.

Stephanie Matushoneck

Tuesday 22nd of May 2018

Thank you! This is great! A few questions, do you have to use sublimation ink with this paper? I am assuming you do. Would a Cricut Easy Press work as a heat press for these? Thank you again! I look forward to your posts : )

Christine

Tuesday 22nd of May 2018

Yes, all sublimation will need a sublimation printer and ink. Here's a good post to start with: https://cuttingforbusiness.com/2017/09/21/sublimation-roundup-for-silhouette-cricut-owners/