I’m hooked! Tarnished Silver….

My good friend Denise of Vintage Gardens has the most amazing collection of old tarnished silver. The more she shares her photos, the more I had to get a few pieces for myself!

Now mind you, I never in a million years would have thought I’d bring silver into my house. As a kid, anytime my brother and I had a huge fight, mom would drag out the silver and make us sit there and polish it. (Amazingly this happened every time the club girls were coming for cards…Just saying mom…LOL!) And boy, did I hate to polish silver!! I was never going to have any in my house when I grew up!

And pretty much over the years I stuck to that. I did pick up a few odd bread plates which I quickly sold at my garage sale so I didn’t have to polish it. But now, thanks to Denise I know I don’t have to have sparking shiny silver! It’s just as beautiful with tarnish as it is freshly polished!

So why you ask, am I showing you a picture of sparkling sliver? Okay, old habits die hard. I just couldn’t put it out that way! And I have an easier way of cleaning it then just regular silver polish.

What I do is line my sink with a large piece of aluminum foil. Sprinkle a generous amount of baking soda on it. Then I lay the silver pieces on top of it.


Add boiling water to cover. But watch out. It produces a lot of steam and a stinky rotten egg smell! Ventilate you kitchen well if you try this!


Roll the pieces with a plastic utensil if the water doesn’t cover it all. Leave them soak for about 15 minutes or until you don’t see them getting any cleaner. (Add cold water to cool so you can pick them up.) You can repeat this until they come out almost clean, but getting the majority of the tarnish off with the first step makes polishing extremely easy.


I finish off with a very quick polish using SemiChrome. It does a great job and its easy since the hot baking soda bath did most of the work. Here’s the finished product! My mom’s silver that I hated to polish 30 years ago is now mine! Thank you mom, I now love it!



And I’ve added a few more pieces from the local thrift store.


I just love the detail on this piece!


So there’s my new little collection. I don’t think I’ll let it get any bigger. But I will let it tarnish now. Hey, it’s easy enough to clean if I don’t like it, right? LOL! And as soon as I place them around my house, I’ll take more pictures to share.