The elephant key project

We have had this elephant for over 20 years. It is a landmark in our house. I originally bought it at Hobby Lobby. It was intended to be a plant holder. It is very heavy and sits on the credenza by the backdoor. 

The daily keys people use go in the elephant. Some are on lanyards, some on rings, they stay near the top. 

Also in the depths of the elephant are the extra keys to all four of our cars, extra keys to our house, keys to our safe deposit box, plus a big collection of extra keys for my mother (including *multiple door keys, car key and safe deposit box key). Our Hondas came with three keys, two regular and one valet. So we are talking a lot of keys. 

*A note on multiple door keys - locks can be rekeyed. When we bought our front security door, we had those two locks rekeyed to match the rest of the doors in our house.  So one key unlocks every door, knob locks and dead bolts, at our house. This makes life a lot simpler. 

The extra keys were all on assorted weird rings. We have one Toyota and three Hondas. My mother has a Honda. So most of the extra car keys look identical. 

I bought personalized key rings, ordered on sale, from Etsy. 

I got the color that was on sale. And I had each stamped (subtly) with our first name. I bought four of these, one for each of us, to organize the extra car keys. 

I happened to have a similar leather key ring, which I am using for my mother. That original leather key ring is what prompted this whole little project. 

From top to bottom -

Keys my husband uses on lanyard 

Extra keys for Accord my husband drives to office (when he goes) (was originally oldest’s first/only car, they only took one vehicle with them).

Extra keys for middle’s civic (I am further dividing her keys, note at bottom) 

Extra key for Youngest’s civic (when she is home, her regular keys on a lanyard, go in the elephant. Her valet key stays at college as her service/back up key.)

Extra key for my Toyota.

Safe deposit box keys 

Extra keys for my mom’s house, car, safe deposit box 

And off to the right at the bottom, all the extra house keys I found in a zip lock bag the chicken basket in this undertaking. 

The keys middle uses daily are in her work bag. One key fob for the Toyota is deep in the phone case I wear around my neck/a tiny cross body, with my credit cards/ID, my car is keyless.

I dumped the whole elephant for this project. And yes, there were an assortment of weird keys at the bottom, but not many. And there was no extra accumulation of coins and buttons and paper clips, I had cleaned it out fairly recently. 

I also found the hen basket we used at the old house, with odds and ends of very old keys and junk in it, in the bottom of the credenza. 

So, all together, these (below) were the weird keys, I had no idea what they were. Top of picture is the shocking amount from the hen basket (plus a bag of house keys not in the picture) and bottom of picture shows the ones dumped from the elephant -

I did find important keys. I found the second/extra lock box key in the pile from the chicken basket. I put it on the ring with the one I use. Also in the chicken basket, I found a zip lock bag from the hardware store with “new” extra house keys for this house. 

I usually cannot bring myself to pitch keys. But I identified four keys that were clearly cars from long ago and pitched them -

I was left with two categories of weird keys

 - luggage/small locks (on ring, top of photo below) 

 - unidentified (on ring, middle of photo below) 

and a lot of sturdy key rings (on carabiner, bottom of photo below)

Yes, it is unlikely anyone will ever need any of those keys, but you never know. And the sturdy rings may come in handy. All three of those rings are now all in the hen basket, back in the bottom of the credenza. 

The day I wrote this post, I did two extra things - 

I ordered a key ring for middle with the puppies picture on it. I am going to leave her valet key on the leather ring with her name on it in the elephant, for emergencies and service. I am going to put her extra key and a house key on the new puppy ring for her to take to the gym. I will add a picture when it arrives. 

And I sent a couple of these pictures to Youngest’s and middle so they knew what I had done, what was in the elephant, and what was in the hen basket. 

The extended family photo project

My mother sorted/divided/distributed photos from her second husband’s side of the family a couple years ago. So all those family photos are now in the hands of his children and grandchildren. It was a huge relief to her, and to me, very smart/proactive, and as a 2nd wife, a kind thing to do. 

Then, my mom sorted out the rest of her photos and brought the lot, from our side of the family, over to my house. Hundreds and hundreds of photos. 

I absolutely wanted the photos and it was very good to do this while she was still alive. Before she gave them to me, she wrote on the back of almost all of them. And she sorted as best she could, but they were still a bit of a jumble, many envelopes, folders, boxes. 

I totally changed my mind on what to do with these photos.

My intention, at the time she gave me the piles, was to put all those extended family photos in my red genealogy binders. Thankfully I started on a few stacks, but never really got to it. 

Recently, I rethought the whole concept.  

I realized none of my kids will want any of these extended family photos. And they do not know most of these people by sight, they would not be able to sort these photos. And it would be a terrible dilemma for them. When a house gets cleaned out, probably it all just gets pitched or stored in boxes forever. (Probably they will not want my red genealogy binders either.)

So, with my husband helping me, we went through our own photo albums, my mother’s stacks (which included photos from my grandmother and great grandmother), and the red genealogy binders.  We started dividing photos, very very aggressively. Our plan - to distribute extended family photos to the extended family. 

Which extended family?

I have five maternal first cousins, all their parents/my aunts and uncles are still alive and now in their mid to late 70’s. I am not sending pictures to the older folks, who hopefully have started cleaning out their own houses. Instead I am sending directly to their kids, my first cousins. And I am sending to my niece and nephew, my brother’s children, and my brother. 

I knew I had all current addresses, from my last two years of Christmas card mailings. I am not asking anyone in advance if they wanted photos. I am not asking anyone any questions (except my mother). And I think this is key. If they want to pitch, rehome, redivide, whatever, that is on them. But those stacks of photos are all going to be out of my house and are already gone from my mother’s house.

How did we start sorting?

If you are wondering about the practicalities, we cleaned off the kitchen table, made signs to identify the piles and just dug in to the sorting on a recent Saturday.

We started with our house set of photo albums. My husband put them on the kitchen table and we went thru every picture pulling ones of just the extended family. If we were also in the pictures, sometimes we saved them, often they went in the piles.

Then we went thru my mom’s piles. This was the hard part, there were a lot. I had to do the very old ones, my husband was able to focus on my brother/niece/nephew who he could easily recognize.  

We pulled for my cousins, brother, niece, nephew. 

We saved photos of me, my mother, my grandparents, my great grandparents and great-great grandparents. I saved some of the pictures of us with other family members, I shared others. My mother thought she had destroyed all her first wedding pictures. She had not, I found an envelope full and was glad to see them. Many of the pictures I kept came from my mother’s, grandmother’s and great grandmother’s photo albums which we had disassembled several years ago. The albums were not photo safe and were crumbling. My mother wrote on the back of all the ones we pulled from albums.

Then we went thru the red genealogy binders and pulled the pertinent pictures I had already filed. 

By the end of that Saturday, we were sorted and the photos were safe in plastic bags. And we figured out and assembled boxes for shipping. 

That was a 8+ hour project, but it was easier to do the sorting all in one go. 

This photo (below) amuses me because it looks so simple. There are hundreds of photos in those bags. But, the bags all look so small in this picture. There were too many photos to use padded envelopes. We needed boxes, which I had. 

It was important to pause, a long pause in fact, I am still paused.

And then I purposely paused. The kitchen table stayed exactly like the above photo. The boxes are all addressed with the bags of photos in them,  but the boxes are not yet sealed.

By myself, taking my time, I am going back thru each plastic bag, carefully, to see if we made any mistakes or if I changed my mind about any photos. I am taking photos with my phone of a few pictures.

I called my mom and she looked thru her house several more times to be sure she had gotten everything. 

I am still looking carefully at my house to be sure we got everything. I have a large metal cabinet upstairs, which I think is full of pictures from my husband’s side, but we are going thru it now. 

And I am writing notes to include with each box, when they are eventually shipped. 

What were all these pictures? 

My cousins, niece/nephew, brother will all receive pictures of themselves solo, or with/of their family (parents, siblings, aunts/uncles, grandparents). 

Many of these pictures had come at holidays over the decades, photo Christmas cards, professional individual or family portraits, candids, baby pictures and school photos for example. There were also a lot of photos I had taken, candids from family gatherings, decades ago. I am almost 61. I often had a camera in hand as a child/teenager/young adult. And there were photos from my mom’s very old albums, my mom is 81.

A huge advantage, in dividing for my niece and nephew, was that because I had my mom’s stash and my stash, there were a lot of duplicates, so my niece and nephew each got important/identical photos in their piles. 

The rest of the sibling sets to my cousins, I just divided as evenly as I could. There are a lot of very old pictures of their parents/my aunt and uncle, in those sets that I am sure my cousins have never seen. 

Hopefully these boxes will be happily received. 

We are shipping hundreds of photos to people who, hopefully, will be very surprised and happy to receive them. Most importantly - hundreds of photos are headed out of my house and my kids will not have to deal with them. 

Cherry pit trifold bag instructions

I buy my cherry pits from The Cherry Pit Store in Michigan. They are shipped to me. 

http://cherrypitstore.com/

I buy 40 lb bags, which are very heavy and awkward to carry. (If you live on a 6th floor walk up, you will want to buy a smaller size or find a strong friend to help.)

A 40 lbs bag of cherry pits yields approximately 18 of my regular cherry pit microwave bags (instructions in previous post) with about 8 cups of pits per bag. 

Today, I am noting the sewing directions for making a longer, trifold version of a cherry pit bag. 

Youngest’s trifold (below) is yellow with stars. She had to bring it home so we could weigh and measure it. I have made four of those, but never wrote down the instructions because I thought each was the last. 

I made two more last month, as Christmas gifts, this time I documented carefully, so I can make these without Youngest helping. 

We determined 25” x 9.5” was the right size. 

One trifold cherry pit bag requires two pieces of 100% thick cotton flannel and two pieces of 100% cotton each cut at 25” x 9.5”. 

Note - this is a basic sewing instruction, I include it for beginners. All stitching lines have to be locked so they do not pull apart/unravel. For straight stitching, back stitch at the beginning and end of each seam. When zigzagging, straight stitch and back stitch to lock, then zigzag over it. Cannot back stitch on a serger, so fold the serger thread tails under/down and straight stitch over them on the regular machine. 

Note - In these instructions, the blue fish fabric is 100% cotton flannel (right side). The bird fabric is regular 100% cotton I had on hand, will be lining on the inside, will not show. (I used up all my muslin on cherry pit bags a few weeks ago. A sewing friend suggested I use up print cotton rather than buying muslin. I made several aprons from the bird print, still have a lot left. Also fabric store curbside order for muslin came back as out of stock. . .)

The first thing I did was pair each piece of flannel with a piece of cotton, wrong sides together, and press. The reason I did wrong sides together was to reduce the chance of the bird print showing through the flannel. 

Using a very long basting stitch, I sewed the two pieces of fabric together, 1/8” from the edge.

Then I sewed two pairs together, on three sides, using a 2/8”  seam allowance, with the right sides of the flannel against each other, and the cotton on the outside. I left one long edge open. I back stitched at the edges and the corners to reinforce them. 

I ran all three sides through the serger. I did not turn the corners, I ran each side one at a time. I carefully folded the thread tails in, so the serger did not cut them. Then I restitched all three sides on the regular machine, sewing down the serger thread tails as I went. 

Next, I turned the open edge under, toward the cotton/inside, and zigzagged it. I find it helpful to use the width of the zigzag foot as my guide when turning things under like this. I just turn as I go. I do not pin or press. 

Then I flipped the whole thing right side out and measured the finished length. I divided that number by 3 and drew my lines with a pencil. 

I stitched on the lines and on each side of the lines. 

Then youngest weighed the star one, and did math. Each section gets 462g. Using the tar function to subtract the weight of the metal bowl, we used the bowl to hold the cherry pits while weighing, and then poured them directly in each section. (We did not use the plate, it just happens to be in this picture.)

This is the only time I use pins when sewing cherry pits. I use the pins to hold the cherry pits back, so I can sew the opening closed.  I am careful to count how many pins I use and very careful to be sure I remove all of them. (A pin left in a cherry pit bag bill cause it to catch fire in the microwave.)

I stitched twice across the long open edge, back stitching frequently for added strength. You can also see my original zigzag line from when I turned the raw edge under. 

 

I make at least two cherry pit bags at a time, so I can chain stitch from one to the other on the sewing machine as I go. Since they are identical fabric, I used both when documenting my steps (above). If I forgot to take a picture, I had a back up ready/available. 

Bonus, I can make two in nearly the same time it takes to make one. Double bonus, I used up fabric I already had. 

I only give one of these trifold bags as a gift. The two above were gifted to two different people. This is the note (below) I enclose with one of these trifold bags. I use this note because everyone I give the trifold bag to already has two of my regular (square) cherry pit bags. 

Cherry pit (square) bag sewing instructions

I buy my cherry pits from The Cherry Pit Store in Michigan. They are shipped to me. 

http://cherrypitstore.com/

I buy 40 lb bags, which are very heavy and awkward to carry. (If you live on a 6th floor walk up, you will want to buy a smaller size or find a strong friend to help.)

A 40 lbs of cherry pits yields approximately 18 of these square cherry pit bags with about 8 cups of pits per bag.

For correct filling and heating, always weigh the cherry pits, 1044g per this square bag. There is an explanation of how to weigh them on a digital kitchen scale, further down in the directions.

Important point. If a pin gets left in the bags during construction, it will cause the cherry pit bags to catch fire in the microwave. Over cooking will also catch them on fire. 

Microwave instructions -

2 minutes for one bag, 

3 minutes for cooking 2 bags side by side together.

The finished bags have a cherry smell for the first few weeks, it goes away over time as the cherry pits are cooked in the microwave. 

Supplies -

Flannel 

Muslin

Thread (regular sewing thread)

Cherry pits

Sewing machine

Zipper foot

Serger (or zigzag/serge stitch on regular machine)

Scissors

Iron/ironing board 

Digital kitchen scale 

Sturdy plastic plate 

Paper cup with bottom removed 

Piece of paper 

Post it note

Use 100% cotton flannel, the thicker the better. And use 100% cotton muslin. (I have successfully used old printed 100% cotton fabric when I ran out of muslin.)

Prewash both fabrics with laundry soap and dry them in the dryer before cutting. 

Cutting directions -

Cut the flannel (21” x 12.5”) slightly wider than the muslin (21” x 12”). This extra 1/4” of flannel on each side makes sure both fabrics are easily caught in the seams. 

Sewing directions -

Note - this is a basic sewing instruction, I include it for beginners. All stitching lines have to be locked so they do not pull apart/unravel. For straight stitching, back stitch at the beginning and end of each seam. When zigzagging, straight stitch and back stitch to lock, then zigzag over it. Cannot back stitch on a serger, so fold the serger thread tails under/down and straight stitch over them on the regular machine. 

Press the muslin to the wrong side of the flannel, distributing the 1/4” excess flannel evenly on both sides of the muslin.  The combination of the ironing and flannel holds the two fabrics together pretty well.  (I do not baste or pin the sides, to hold the two pieces together, but that might help someone else, as long pins are carefully removed). 

Serge the ends to prevent fraying and to hold the two pieces of fabric together. If you do not have a serger, use the zigzag stitch on a regular machine. 

Turn the end edges under, the width of the zipper foot, and straight stitch (over the serging or zigzagging) in place.

From this point forward, the two fabrics are treated as one. The muslin lining is attached to the flannel.

Folding the bag in half, right sides of flannel together, stitch the sides, three times. 

First, starting at the ends, so they line up perfectly, and back stitching carefully, straight stitch, using a zigzag foot lined up with the edge of the muslin, for a 2/8” seam allowance. Note - Peek at the back and make sure the muslin edges are lined up fairly well, first.

Next run the edges through the serger, sealing the edge of the fabrics and cutting off the excess flannel. If you do not have a serger, zigzag. 

Then, straight stitch over the top of the serging (or zigzagging), taking care to fold the tails of the serging thread over, and catch them in the back stitching at each end of the side.

Flip the bag right side out. 

Next, top stitch the corners, leaving a 4” opening for the paper cup in the center. I have a trick for this. It is hard to start at the end and sew toward the center. So instead, use a post it note to mark 3” and sew from the middle toward the end.

Here are all my weighing tricks -

That is a light weight but solid plastic plate to hold the bag on the digital kitchen scale, a paper cup with the bottom cut out to use as a funnel, and a piece of paper taped in a large funnel shape to catch the spills. Use the TAR function to eliminate the weight of the plate, flannel/cotton bag, paper, paper cup. Weigh exactly 1044g of cherry pits. 

Here is a visual of how many cherry pits equal 1044g. I used the tar function to remove the weight of the light weight bowl first. (That metal bowl is over 60 years old, my mother received a nesting set of them as a shower gift when she got married.)

After filling the bag, use pins to hold back the cherry pits to sew the ends.  

Restitch the whole seam, sewing the center hole shut. You will have to hold the weight of the cherry pit bag up to keep the weight from tugging on the needle. 

To be sure the open side does not pop open, over time, 

straight stitch a second seam, on the outside of the first.  On both these seems, back stitch a couple stitches, intermittently, along the whole length.

Make sure pins are all removed!!!

I tend to give these cherry pit bags as gifts in pairs. I include this note -