Saturday, February 12, 2011

Homemade Silver Polish

If you read my Valentine banner post, you know I am having some friends over for a Valentine's dinner. We have lived in our house for three years now and have only used our dinning room twice, both times were Thanksgiving dinner. So, I'm trying to say I'm pretty excited to have a little get together and use the room.
I don't have a nice set of silverware. I have found several sets I wouldn't mind owning but I don't want to shell out the money for them. My solution was to buy silverware as I come across it at thrift and antique stores. I paid between ten cents to two dollars a piece for my silverware. The only problem now is that every piece is pretty tarnished.
I remember using a rag to polish my grandma's flatware and not really digging all that work. I came across this super easy and quick way to clean/polish silverware:

Homemade Silver Cleaner/Polish:
  • 2 tablespoons baking soda
  • 1 tablespoon salt
  • aluminum foil
  • glass dish
  • hot water

Line a glass dish with aluminum foil and add your silverware. Be sure it touches as much of the foil as possible because the reaction to the foil is what removes the tarnish. Sprinkle the salt and baking soda over the silverware.

Now, carefully pour boiling water over your silverware, being sure all items are completely submerged. This part is fun because it gets all bubbly and fizzy. Your kitchen should now smell a bit like a sulfur hot pot (my husband walked in and blamed the smell on the dog). Let your mixture sit for 30 minutes.

Then pour out the water, rinse off your flatware, rub it a little with a clean cloth and...

Aren't you impressed?! It looks amazing and I didn't have to rub it with a cloth all day long!

I had no idea this spoon was engraved until I cleaned off all the tarnish. So cool.



Now I'm all ready for my dinner guests!

13 comments:

  1. Thanks for the great idea!

    Kathy

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  2. when I worked at The Salvation Army, we'd get ready for an antique sale and clean, polish and dust all kinds of silver pieces and we'd use your idea too...it works very well. Visit Mel's Cabin the next time you're blog hopping.

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  3. Great idea! Thanks for the tip--I like your way much better than using polish!

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  4. Thank you so much for posting this!!!!! I knew there was a way other then that pink sticky stuff they sell in the store!!! This is great!

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  5. Wow, that's really clever! My sister has a silver bell she got for Christmas several years ago, and it's really tarnished, so I'll e-mail her a link to this post!

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  6. I'm always so amazed with these home recipes for things like this. It really is shocking what you can make yourself if you know how, huh? Thanks for the tip!! And thanks for joining Idea Sharin' Wednesday!

    Jill
    womenwhodoitall.blogspot.com

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  7. Thanks for this homemade recipe! I have my grandmother's silver and it looks horrible. My husband is disgusted by it and won't use it :(

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  8. Great non toxic solution. And I love your approach to silver...it is so much fun to pick them up here and there and set a table with mixed and matched vintage silver.

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  9. wow you are an angle i have some silver jewelery i will clean it this way

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  10. I love your style. I always admired your taste in clothing and I also love your taste in decor. You are one classy lady. love and miss you.

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  11. Jo, you're too sweet! Love and miss you too!
    --Leigh

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  12. wow thanks for the homemade silver polish! I'm going to try that! Looks like it worked really well :)

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  13. No silver to polish here, but somehow I always get stuck doing it for my boss's dinner parties :p

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