Last year at the local flea market I bought a whole bunch of vintage skeleton keys. The keys have great shapes and details with a nice amount of rusted patina. What really sealed the deal for me however were the unique circular stamped metal "labels" on each key. The vendor told me the keys were from M.I.T. and indeed one of the keys is labeled MIT Small Cottage. Among the others I purchased: No. 1 Lv. R. and Wind Tun. Pretty cool.
So far (over a year later...) I've only completed one project using my M.I.T. keys, a ribbon bookmark.
Here's what I did:
- Separate the key from the key ring. For my bookmark I used No. 1 Lib., as in library. Clever, I know.
- Cut a piece of ribbon apprx. 15 inches long. I used wire edge ribbon.
- Here's the {not} tricky part: tie the key onto one end of the ribbon then tie the key ring with the label onto the other end of the ribbon. Phew.
- Trim the ribbon ends and put your new bookmark to work holding your place in your current reading book.
Now if you don't happen to find keys that already have metal stamped labels you could certainly make your own using a metal disk and your metal alphabet stamps (I have some from Harbor Freight). You could also use some other cool vintage metal item at the top of the bookmark--basically anything you can tie a ribbon through would work.
Now maybe someday I'll do something with No. 1 D.R. or 1st. H KIT. Until then I'll keep using my No. 1 Lib. bookmark and enjoying the rest of the keys just sitting in a bowl on my desk.
Happy Reading!