This silver thing has brought up a lot of helpful comments. Thank you to all of you who gave me a "recipe" for cleaning silver with baking soda. I am proud to announce that I tried it today! Googling "silver cleaning" and "baking soda" will give you quite a few recipes to go on, but I chose Real Simple's version because it was...ah...surprisingly real simple.
Basically I took 1/4 cup baking soda, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1 quart boiling water. Mixed them all together, then poured it over my silver. (I lined a glass dish with tin foil for this little silver science experiment.)
What silver, you ask? Well, that's the other thing. The great irony is that, while I've been checking out antique shops for other people's old silver, I had my grandmother's complete set, beautiful and engraved, all ready to go in my own house.
I've kept it tucked away and only brought it out on special occasions. But why? Why not use it all the time? I've been pondering this. And in the meantime, I got the above recipe for cleaning silver, and decided to use it on my grandmother's stuff, and on other family pieces, like this bowl.
Just pour the mixture over your silver piece(s), and let them sit for a minute or two. My silverware was remarkably clean already, so you can't see much of a difference, but check out the before and after on this bowl!
So, back to the silverware. My blogging friend Sarah, over at Nesting in Pleasant View, encouraged me to use the precious stuff every day. She says "Use it, use it, use it! My mom's silver sat in a hutch for close to 40 years only being used maybe once every 5 years. The setting is very intricate, with a small rosebud on it and definitely looks more 'dressy' than my everyday plates and stuff. I threw caution out the window and decided that if I liked it, then I would use it. Now I can't imagine NOT using it....It makes me happy to stir my morning cup of coffee with a silver spoon that was a wedding present to my mom and dad."
So I did it! I swear, the hardest part was taking each piece out of that velvet-lined storage box, allowing it to come into the every day and being stored without an anti-tarnish guarantee. So far, so good. I will let you know if it continues to go well. :)
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5 comments:
I agree you should use it, make the most of what you have and enjoy it!
Good for you! Doesn't all of your food taste so much better now? Not that you wouldn't be a good cook. But even cereal tastes better to me :)
So glad you decided to use it--Nina and Henry will see you using it and when they are older, it will bring back such great memories!
You may have already heard these cautions, if so please forgive the repeat.
1) avoid leaving silver in contact with acidic foods like tomato sauces, vinegar, mustard. They will leave dark spots that don't go away.
2) Dont wash in the dishwasher.
Love your blog. Enjoy your lovely silver!
So great that your using it! I've decided the same thing about my great grandma's depression glass. I was gifted it on my wedding day as was my mother and my grandmother. I had never seen many of the pieces because my mom never took them out of the box! She was so afraid of losing a piece. Every new birthday that I use her old cake plate fills me heart overflowing with love.
i just inherited my inlaws gorgeous silver collection that i have drooled over for years!
same thing...only used for special occasions. why? ugh...i really really want to use it daily too but am worried i'll be the family member that messes it up for future lucky inheritants!
i tweeted this & someone sent me your link & i'm so glad i did. funny enough, my mother inlaw told me about this very thing before she passed, the cleaning thing.
so i definately plan to use it daily which is still sorta freaking me out as its completely perfect right now.
the only bummer is i feel like i've heard its supposed to hang out in its fancy box>.....is this true? cuz i have no where to put said ginormous fancy box for daily use.
anyway....
figured i'd drop by & leave an epic comment & say good luck to both of us ....and our gorgeous silver!!
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