I have made no resolutions other than buying myself a vintage skeleton key necklace because reaching THAT goal is a certainty. Lazy? I prefer to think of it as learning from experience. Yes, I’d like to lose weight, learn how to use my camera, and take more pictures, but here I am a year after having made the same goals not an ounce lighter and with my Flickr Pro account having expired at the beginning of November. So, there’s that.

I rang in the New Year with my nose buried deep among the pages of Etsy. I don’t know how that works, exactly, with Etsy being a website and not a book, but I’m sure you get my meaning. Anyway. During a recent viewing of a youtube video, I was introduced to a really gorgeous sterling silver, vintage style skeleton key necklace. It turned out to be this one from Tiffany:
This one  is $200, and extra for a chain. The pendant is really beautiful, but I’m stingy and don’t want to use up all my Christmas money on one item.

Also, there’s a part of me that really wants an actual vintage skeleton key instead of a pendant fashioned to look like one. Old keys have mystery. What doors have they opened? Who carried them? Was someone locked out? Locked in? What kind of secrets and potential scandals were hidden behind locked doors? Am I overthinking this too much? Probably, but I’m sure you get my meaning.

So I’m aware that key necklaces are the new “trend,” I guess, not that this influences me because I’m not a trendy person. I first came across key necklaces when someone on a message board linked to a necklace she’d recently bought herself, which was $25 at Danger Dames and used an actual antique key from 1857:

“Now that’s more like it, ” I said to myself, “but without the ribbon and lace.” I could have bought one from Danger Dames, taken off the ribbon and lace myself and put the key on a chain, but it didn’t feel right to undo someone else’s work and creativity that way, and that’s how I found myself on Etsy favoriting necklaces left and right while most people were drinking champagne and watching the ball drop.

I’m putting my Etsy finds behind a cut because there are quite a few of them, and for some reason, the formatting for the thumbnail feature keeps getting scrambled. (more…)