Make Your Lemon Keychain

This month's activity
Make Your Lemon Keychain
a shrinky dink situation

Your envelope came with a weird plastic hand drawn lemon. Here's how to shrink it, personalize it, and clip it to whatever you want.

01 Preheat your oven

Set your oven or toaster oven to 325°F.

02 Customize your lemon (or don't)

Use a Sharpie or paint marker to write or draw on the printed side of your lemon. Make sure the hole is on the right when your lemon's stem is facing up. Put your name, your kid's name, a quote you love—whatever feels right.

Sharpie and lemon shrinky dink ready to customize
03 Place it on parchment paper

Set your lemon on a piece of parchment paper. In a toaster oven, parchment paper alone is fine. In a full-sized oven, use a parchment-lined baking sheet.

Lemon on parchment paper on baking sheet
04 Bake & flatten

Toaster oven: 30 seconds to 1 minute.
Full-sized oven: 1 to 3 minutes.

Watch it—your lemon will curl and warp as it shrinks. That's normal. Once it stops visibly shrinking, pull it out and immediately flatten it with a spatula or something heavy.

Flattening the shrunken lemon with a spatula
Don't panic
It's going to look weird while it's shrinking. It curls, it warps, it looks like you ruined it. You didn't. Just wait until it flattens back out on its own and stops shrinking, then press it flat when you pull it out.
05 Cool & attach your keychain

Let it cool for a few minutes, then loop the cord through the hole and clip it to your keys, your bag, your kid's backpack—wherever.

Finished lemon keychain with cord attached
Enjoy your little cutie creation.

Tag me when you make yours! I want to see it in the wild.
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