My mom turned 80 in November. 80! That’s pretty great I think. She’s very independent and continually busy creating in numerous ways and places: making quilts and bags for people at her quilting group, catching up with friends and bringing whatever she’s working on to her crafting group, or sitting in her living room creating beautiful cross stitch pictures or Christmas stockings for her many (and I mean many) grandchildren and great grandchildren (because that’s what happens when you a marry a man who has nine children who all marry and so on…). I am very blessed to have been brought up by someone who really values creativity and encouraged it in my life.

Around this birthday time my mom got a notice from a bank about a safety deposit box that she hadn’t used for a long while. 26 years to be exact. Perhaps she didn’t need it anymore. Perhaps Christmas was a better time to pass along jewelry rather than keeping it locked up and having it handed out to people after she dies (which will hopefully be decades from now). My brother encouraged her in this - better to give these things to people now when she can see their grateful smiling faces and they can see hers.

She had mentioned to me in the past that my name was on her good china. I’ve been doing some downsizing of my own - partly because I live in a small house and partly because our kids are gone and really how many cups and bowls do two people need? Did I really want more dishes? And did I want those dishes?

The china. Memories of family dinners years ago. Memories of my parents’ divorce years ago. I told my brother that the china reminded me of the family that is no more and that I wasn’t sure I wanted it. He asked - couldn’t I just skip over those difficult memories and only remember the good stuff? He had a point.

My mom mentioned the china again. I’ll come get it I thought. I don’t have to keep it. So I came and got it. My mom mentioned that my sister-in-law would take it if I didn’t want it.

I decided my brother was right. I could/should just skip over the sad china memories.

And really, the dishes are beautiful. My mom has great taste and the china is, well, good china. I sometimes forget the beautiful parts of my childhood, my family.

My husband and I agreed that we would use the good china. No point storing it away. The everyday stuff is now out of the house. The food looks better on the nice plates. The tea with friends is more elegant in the fancy cups.

Recently I’ve gotten back into making keys with found and upcycled objects. I have two tins of the “good stuff” amongst my key making supplies. One tin holds sparkly rhinestones and the other contains fancy vintage jewelry - mostly brooches and earrings but the occasional necklace.

I’ve been using some of this”good stuff” in my latest batches of keys. I had to convince myself to do it and not just “save it” because it’s precious. The other side of Key 1925 really took a bit of convincing - the silver brooch just looked “right” on it but the key was made with an old tap and an Allen wrench - I put the brooch on it, I took the brooch off it (numerous times!) the brooch looked good on it - I needed to get over my resistance and allow Key 1925 to have nice things. I also had to convince myself to use the nice gold brooch on the bottom of Key 1925 - although the discussion around the gold brooch was much shorter than the one around the silver brooch.

China is meant to be used. Art supplies are meant for creating not for some “shrine to someday”. Here’s to enjoying the “good stuff” now.

This Key 1927 is part of the “boy did I ever have a lot of trouble with too much resin” section of my key making history.

Key 1928 is made from the wire coil I saved from a notebook at work that I recycled (because what is the point of keeping notebooks if I never look at them again once I’ve filled them up?). The shaft of the key is made from part of a tomato cage that i cut down and stripped the green plastic coating off of.