What do you do with your old keycards after your cruise? Do you toss them? Leave them in the room? Take them home as souvenirs?
Lots of people take them home as mementos of their trip. It’s a cheap way to remember your vacation. But if you’re anything like us, those keepsakes just collect dust, sitting in a desk drawer.
Now there’s an adorable way that you can use those old keycards to remember your trip. It’s a tiny picture frame that fits anywhere. Check it out:
Here’s how to make one of your own…
Step #1: Materials
You don’t need much to make your frame. Here’s the full list:
- Two old cruise keycards
- One additional old gift card or other card
- Cutting board
- Razor knife
- Super glue
- Scissors or shears
- A straight edge
- A Sharpie
- A photo to frame (no larger than 3″x2″)
- Tape (optional)
Step #2: Cut your frame
To start, you want to lay your photo over the keycard to get an idea of where you want the opening to be. For our project, we liked having the ship name and date at the top and Carnival’s logo to the right. Once you’ve found the perfect size and location for your frame opening mark where you want to cut.
Using a razor knife, carefully make your cuts. It may take you several passes to go all the way through the card. Once you have the opening cut, you can go back and clean up any loose ends or straighten your cuts.
Step #3: Glue on the backing
With your opening cut, put your picture showing through. If you like, you can put a small piece of tape to hold it in place. Then, take your spare gift card (not the second cruise keycard!) and put glue around the edges. Then, place the card on the back of your frame card as support for the picture.
You’ll now have the two-layer frame with the picture in between each layer.
Step #4: Create a stand
Taking your second cruise keycard, make two marks on the backside, similar to the Nike “swoosh.” Taking scissors (kitchen shears may work better), cut out the mark. You should be left with the shape above.
Once cut out, carefully bend the frame forward. Using a straight-edge can help keep your fold straight. It may take several folds to bend the plastic enough to stay as a stand.
Step #5: Placing your photo
Once the stand is completed, you can just sit the frame in the stand. Careful: Seeing this daily can cause you to want to book more cruises.
