Sparkly Silver

I thought this was just so cool that I had to share. I found these directions on how to remove tarnish from silver jewelery over at Stuff Grandma Made.

I'm pretty skeptical about these supposed miracle home remedies, but I figured, if it didn't work, or ruined my jewelery, it was stuff I wasn't wearing anyhow because the tarnish made them so ugly. 

Before cleaning

Now I was only 100% certain that two of the items, the calla lily earrings and the leaf ring, were actually silver, and not silver plate.  I was pretty sure that the star ring and the twisty earrings were plated, but might not even be silver plated.

The original directions do state not to use this method on items that are silver plated, as it could damage the metal underneath.  But, as I explained earlier, I wasn't wearing any of these things anyhow because they were so tarnished.  I felt I had nothing to lose.

After cleaning

Woah! Look how shiny they are! I can't believe it worked so well.

Want to know how I did it? 

Take a piece of foil and line a heat resistant bowl or dish.  Combine 2-3 teaspoons each of table salt and baking soda with enough boiling water to cover your jewelery.  The jewelery should be touching the foil and each other.  Then you let it soak for 5 minutes.  Polish with a towel to get them to shine.

I did have to let the twisty earrings soak for an additional 5 minutes because they were so horribly tarnished.  And for some reason there was a mild stink of sulfur for the 5 minutes the jewelery was soaking.  That was really odd, but the odor did subsided so I'm just going to chalk it up to one of those weird things.  The jewelery seems fine so who really cares.

I'm just so happy to be able to wear these pieces again!