My mom had lots of silver serving dishes. Most she inherited from her mom. Growing up my sister and I were given the task of polishing ALL the silver, usually near the holiday season. Sometimes Mom used it as a form of punishment when we had been bickering. Silver polishing was done by hand, with a rag, until it gleamed to Mom’s satisfaction.
Our mother was a perfectionist and classic Type A personality. The silver has lots of decorative details. You can add the two together.
Slowly the serving pieces have been migrating to my house over the years. I have been polishing the silver off and on as needed. I dislike all the work involved in hand polishing the pieces. (Just a fancy way of saying I’m lazy). So I have searched Pinterest for an alternate way of cleaning all the silver. I’ve heard there was a method using aluminum foil out there but did not know all the details. I knew if such a method exists, it would be posted somewhere on the internet and definitely on Pinterest.
Success!! There are many pins on Pinterest about how the EZ way to clean silver. Almost all were the same so I went with this one from Susan Branch’s blog. The directions are simple enough – line the sink with foil, add hot water, 1/2 cup baking soda and 1/2 cup salt.
I gathered up three small silver pieces to test the formula on. All the pieces were lightly tarnished.
I could see the tarnish starting to come off immediately! Woo Hoo!
Overall I consider this Pinterest project a success. I would still recommend good old fashioned silver polish and elbow grease for an annual cleaning. This works for those quickie times you need to polish before company comes. 🙂 Here is the picture of the final product!
