Week 34: Altered Key Week

Recently, I've come into possession of a large stash of old door keys.  As anyone who has even glanced at this blog can tell, I love gluing things to other things.  I've made some altered keys in the past, but I've had a lot of designs that got put on hold because I ran out of old house keys of my own.  With my new bounty I finally got a chance to try out some of my new designs!

I have a lot of gears, and I really like gluing them to things.  This key uses a cluster of gears, along with a filigree heart adorned with a gear to create a neat key pendant.

No gears on this one!  I though it would be fun to add one of these lock charms I've been hoarding to a key.  Lock and key all in one! 

This cool filigree charm has been aching to go on a key for some time.  Once I glued it on, it looked a little out of balance, not to mention washed out and monochrome, so I added a pop of color with these cute metal flower charms I got from the scrapbooking section.

A clock charm, a brass charm, and a hex nut all come together to make a nifty steampunk style altered key pendant.  I softened the edge a little bit with another one of those metal scrapbooking flowers.

This key got the works!  I added filigree leaves, a flower charm, a keyhole charm, and some gears to this key.  I think it looks kind of like a dragonfly key.  But that might just be me.  The layering looked weird through the keyhole, so I added some enamel glaze to give it some coverage.  

Yet another keyhole and gear key pendant.  Are we beginning to notice a theme this week?  I didn't intend for most of my altered keys to turn out so steampunk-ish, but the keys themselves just match with that style so well.

And finally, more gears!  This time I layered some gears with a cameo and  filigree charm that I antiqued myself.  : )  I really like the pop of mint color on this one; it's unexpected and makes the overall piece seem kind of cheerful.

I have so many nifty keys that there is bound to be another round of altered key jewelry before the project is over.  I'll try to wait a few weeks before repeating a theme, but I'm so excited that the ideas are just overflowing.  Well, I'm off to glue my fingers together again.  See you next time!