It's Dangerous To Go Alone! Take This.

Zelda Key Hanger

As a product of the 1980's, my siblings and I spent a lot of hours sitting 6 inches from the television  playing Nintendo, especially Zelda. 
So when my little brother turned 28 a few weeks ago, I decided to make this awesome key hanger for his birthday.  Sentimental yet functional.

I bought a 26" (est.) piece of Poplar wood from Lowe's for around $6-$7, cut it in half & beveled the edges.  (I saved the other half to make a 2nd one later on).  I sanded the edges with a medium grit sanding sponge I purchased from Harbor Freight for less than $1.   Once I had the edges sufficiently sanded, I painted the entire board with Basics black acrylic paint I purchased from WalMart's for a few dollars.  

I used a sponge brush to apply two coats of paint, and allowed at least 20 minutes between coats.  Making sure the first layer was sufficiently dried before moving on to the next coat.

I found the awesome image online simply by Googling "It's dangerous to go alone! Take this" and Kinko's printed an 8x11 for about $1.
Once the paint dried, I applied a moderate coat of Mod Podge glue to the front of the board & centered my image accordingly.  I used an ID card to flatten out the image and to force any trapped air bubbles to the corners.  Once I was done with this, I flipped the board upside down and stacked several heavy books on top of it.  (IMPORTANT -you have to complete this step or your finished product may turn out bubbly.)

Now I could have purchased some hanging hooks and small nails at the store for this next step, but I'm way too lazy and cheap for that. So I took a hanging teeth hook from a crappy painting I had bought at the Goodwill for $.75 and used a staple gun to staple it in place.  Since this board isn't going to be supporting a lot of weight, the staple gun worked just fine. I used a nail to plot out where I wanted the hook to go, which I wanted in the middle of the sword image. Once the initial hole was made I simply screwed in a small J hook. Finished!  I've seen people trying to sell these online for over $40. It cost me less than $15 and maybe an hour worth of time to make my own. A satisfyingly awesome birthday present. My brother loved it.