Where are my [*insert expletive here*] keys?

In the past hubby has had an occasional habit of leaving his house keys on the outside of the front door after unlocking it to come inside. Sometimes our neighbours would see them and post them back through the letterbox for us.  It really scared me when we didn't notice they were hanging on the outside of the front door all night, glinting in the street-lights shouting "hello burglars, please visit us, we've made it REALLY easy for you" until we found them there the next morning.

So, I bought hubby a retracting cord which clipped his keyring to his trouser belt loops.  If he then left the key in the door and attempted to walk away he'd find himself attached to the door with the spring cord and his trousers would get a reminder tug.

Unfortunately the said he cord was bulky when the keys were in his pocket, so it got ditched. 

More recently his habit changed to bringing the keys in with him (some progress at least!), but instead he regularly puts them down somewhere he can't locate them.  There are often several minutes of expletives while he searches for them before we can leave the house. 

My second "bright idea" was buying him a novelty key-ring that beeped when you whistled. I picked one with good reviews, and the day it arrived he opened the package and started whistling. Each time the key finder would happily beep to identify its location. After 20 minutes the novelty of whistling every few minutes to 'find' his keys in various test locations around the house wore off and he disappeared off to the gym, without his keys as I was at home.

I was home alone, no radio, no TV, not talking to myself (honest!) and yet randomly every 2 to 4 minutes the damn thing would start beeping. I put a pillow over it. I put it in the room furthest from me. Random beeping continued. He was at the gym for 2 hours which was more than sufficient time for me to be drawn slowly mad by the constant beeping.

When he came home, I calmly made my feelings known and he laughed it off saying it couldn't have possibly beeped every 2 to 4 minutes (random not regular - trust me I checked) for 2 hours solidly. We sat down to eat the meal I had been cooking and heard a little beep from the hall table.  The battery was subsequently removed and I relished a ceremonial slam-dunk throw into the bin.

I'm having one last attempt at finding a way for him to locate his keys and as this month the challenge at Without Words Challenge is to use blue and brown, I've made a little key plaque using part of a stamp called No. 7 from Lili of the Valley.   If this doesn't work, then I'm lost for options.

Project Recipe:

• Image - Number 7 from Lili of the Valley
• Colouring - Distress Ink Reinkers
• First Edition Animal Antics Papers
• Stazon Ink Pad
• The Langton Watercolour paper
• Lawn Fawn Large Stitched Circles dies
• Spotty Ribbon

I've been inspired by:

• Papertake Weekly - Technique (chipboard)
• Simon's Wednesday Challenge - Dotty
• Crafty Ribbons - Anything Goes
• Stamping Sensations - Feature a Creature

Happy crafting
Annette
xx