August 5, 2010

Heigh Ho, Silver, Away!

We are going to have a small dinner party soon for a few folks who have hosted us with some wonderful meals. Other than immediate family, we haven't done much entertaining over the last few years, so it'll be fun to do it up a little. I'm going to pull out the wedding china and silverware, and the monogrammed wine glasses that one of our friends carried on her lap on the plane all the way across the country to our wedding 25 years ago.


We'll use the hobnail milk glass salt and pepper dips with miniature silver spoons and the gold napkins I monogrammed with silver napkin rings. When I started pulling everything out of the cupboards and drawers, it was pretty obvious that the silver was very tarnished and would need a good cleaning. Yuck! I actually garage saled a beautiful serving dish with a silver base a few years ago because I figured I'd never take the time to clean it, so would never use it. Rats ... big mistake!


I'm not planning to use the salad serving set since I got a gorgeous beaded pair last year, but I figured I'd clean them along with the other pieces.


The Internet is truly my friend. I did a search for removing silver tarnish and this wonderful site popped up with extremely simple directions. All you need is aluminum foil, baking soda and boiling water.


After I poured the boiling, bubbling baking soda water over the silver pieces, the air actually reeked of sulfur. It was pretty stinky, but I figured that meant it was working.

And as it says in the directions, since our silver was so tarnished, I reheated the water, added a little more baking soda and soaked it again. That water turned so gray and dirty.


I rinsed off each piece and took an old dishrag rag to it.


The tarnish easily wiped right off and everything sparkled.


That was a pretty quick, satisfying, successful cleaning project. From now on, if I see an interesting piece of silver at a garage sale or flea market, I'm buying it!

14 comments:

Kathleen said...

Wow, what a great tip on cleaning silver! I'm with you, if I see something at a garage sale I won't be afraid to buy it now that I know how easy it would be to clean at home.

Carol said...

You mean you can clean that stuff? Who knew??

heavenisabookstore said...

Wow that is a huge difference! Nice job and great tip.

Duchess said...

wow what a difference! it's beautiful

Michelle @Flying Giggles said...

Thank yous so much for this. I have some silver pieces that are in need of a good cleaning. I am going to keep my eye out at yard sales too, who would have thought it would be so easy?

Baby Sister said...

Huh. That's pretty cool!! Good to know!! Have fun!! :D

Julian said...

I love the cutlery .. <3 the spoon !

Tiffanee said...

What a beautiful table setting. Great story with the glasses. What a sweet gesture. Thanks for the silver polishing tip. You did an amazing job!! I am excited to come for dinner!!

Elizabeth @ Southern Comfort said...

What a wonderful tip!
Can you give us the link so we know proportions of baking soda/ water etc? I have LOTS of silver that could use a good cleaning.
Thanks for sharing!

Hugs,
Elizabeth

Snowcatcher said...

Huge congrats on 25 years! And what a marvelous way to celebrate! Let's hope you can make it to the golden anniversary now... :)

Neat to see the cleaning process in action. Pretty amazing you can attain such shine without the commercial cleaners! I think I like your method much better!

Stacey @ Chasing Cloud 9 said...

I've always wondered how to clean that stuff!

AiringMyLaundry said...

So pretty!! We just have boring old silverware.

paige renee said...

Wow! Everything looks so beautiful! And I adore those napkins! Now that I learned how to monogram things, those just might be the next thing I need to make. :)

Unknown said...

What a simple way to clean up the tarnish. I've only used cleaners, lol. Love this idea and they turned out beautifully!!