polishing silver

I was browsing through Pinterest one day and, as often happens,

one pinned picture led me to a website.

All of a sudden, I was like "whoa!"

Shut down the rest of the whatever you're doin',

grab a stool, grab the oh so embarrassing tarnished

silver, start diggin' for the fixins' ....

and start polishing.

I love silver. The shiny and the tarnished.

I especially love the old pieces that have come

from such very special people and places.

I don't like when they're aren't user friendly ....

I just can't serve anything out of something that looks like this.

Not that I'm serving coffee out of these, but good gravy!

They look hideous!

I took the dish washing tub (I really can't recall any fancy name for that thing),

lined it with tin foil (shiny side up) and filled with hot water.

I don't have a scientific brain, but something about this mix must do something,

because they said it would!

Equal parts of sea salt and baking soda went into the hot water

and then got stirred around a bit.

Plunk in the silver and let it sit for 15 minutes.

I then turned over the pieces to get the other side.

Some chemical reaction inside all that makes for a stink,

but it's nothing quite like the stink of cleaning your shower with

vinegar or hitting the self clean button on the oven.

When I took them out of the water, I used a cloth to rub off the grunky black grime,

especially the most blackest of the tarnish.

Okay, so this one needs a second dipping.

Makes me wonder if I had too many pieces in the bath ...

maybe I should have just done 2 pieces a time.

This one will get redone ... later.

Look at the difference though!

More polishing required, but well on our way to looking like silver

rather than mud.

And .... well on my way to serving coffee with  sparkling creamer and sugar.

Are you wondering why I have what looks like tongs in the creamer?

Aaah. I believe they are sugar tongs ....

and I believe I am going to start using them.

Once the silver has had another go 'round,

I'm adding sugar cubes to my kitchen.

I just might start using a saucer for my coffee as well ...

and pour my coffee on it to cool it off a bit before

I sip it down.

Oh. I almost forgot!

I do have a large silver platter that I am going to be needing

in the next several months, and it probably doesn't look so pretty either.

Being as fitting it into the kitchen sink will prove challenging,

I'm going to move my silver process to the laundry tub in the garage

where the sink is much deeper and might work a wee bit better.

Happy polishing!