DIY Disney Pin Lanyard

We're doing something at Disneyland this year that we've never done before----pin trading. The kids are so excited. I was able to get a great deal on the pins on Ebay, but when I went looking for lanyards, I discovered that they are kind of pricey. And not available in the Disney Store online, so we'd have to wait until arriving at the parks to purchase them, attach all of our pins, arrange them according to which ones should be traded and which ones should be kept, and so forth. Not something I want to mess with.

I figured they would be easy enough to make myself, so sat down this afternoon and spent an hour sewing up a couple of kid sized lanyards out of Disney fabric already in my stash. FREE! And I kind of like them better than the real thing!

Such an easy project-and thought others could benefit from a little tutorial (though it is ridiculously simple).

One piece of fabric, 32" x 3" (if you are going to buy fabric, buy 1/8 of a yard-only because that's the smallest cut a shop will normally make).

Fold in half lengthwise (right sides together) and sew along the edge, using 1/2" seam making a long tube.

Attach a safety pin to one end and push it down the tube to easily turn the fabric right side out.

Remove safety pin and fold one raw edge back into tube about 1/2" (to hide the raw edge). Leave the other edge raw.

Iron folded end and tube flat.
Fit the end of the tube with the raw edge inside of the folded end creating a circle.

Sew the tube together where you fitted the two ends together.

I wanted more of a lanyard look, so I top stitched around the circle in 1/2" increments. Mine had five seams doing this. Definitely not a necessary step.

Locate the seam where the two ends were sewn together to create the circle and measure an inch above that. Sew the top and bottom layer of the circle together along that measured point creating a small loop at the bottom of your lanyard.

The loop can be kept for your keys, but we will be using it for the kids' emergency cards that we made last year.

You can see how we made the cards and what info we included here.