The Silver Lining

The finished dining room

We finally got the dining room pretty much finished. Now our dining suite is "antiqued" a gorgeous creamy white with silver accents. I moved my blue and white Spode "Winter's Eve" Christmas china into the china cabinet and brought out my wedding silver. I have some inherited crystal pieces I want to bring out still; they are in a high cabinet so I will need some help getting them. When the room is completely done I want everything to be silver and crystal with touches of gold and navy.

I still want to move the oil painting to another place and paint a new one for this room. Besides the colors being too bright, this painting is too small for the wall I think. I have a large canvas ready to repaint for in here. I'm thinking of an rather abstract water or beach scene.

Since our silver has been in storage it's gotten pretty tarnished. I also picked up a very tarnished but super-cool vintage owl trivet at an estate sale recently. I spent the afternoon cleaning and polishing my silver with my all-natural recipe. This cleaner is produced by a cool chemical reaction.

My dirty silver

Ingredients for all-natural silver cleaner.

 First, line your sink with aluminum foil. Add about a cup of baking soda, either regular baking soda or super washing soda, and two teaspoons of salt. Fill the sink with boiling water. The solution will foam up.

Dip the silver in the solution; be careful, it's hot!

Place the silver pieces in the water, covering as much as you can, for a few minutes. Move the piece around to cover all areas. Be careful; the boiling water will heat the silver and it will be very hot! After a bit you will see the tarnish floating off into the water.

The tarnish will begin to come off in the water.

For really large pieces, like my tray, use a spoon to pour the water over the whole thing. After several pieces the tarnish will really fill the sink. Jerry, walking by, said, "It looks like a Transformer threw up in the sink!"

Pour the solution over big pieces to cover them.

After several pieces the water will be full of tarnish.

When all the pieces have been dipped, buff them dry with a clean rag. Lots of tarnish will transfer to the rag. Wear an apron, because it will also transfer to your clothing!

Buff the remaining tarnish away with a clean rag.

 When you've buffed the tarnish away and the piece is dry, polish the silver with a polishing cloth or silver polish. I use silver polishing cloths as dusting cloths at least once a month on my silver so I don't have to clean it as often.

Polish and dust with silver cloths.

I still don't feel very well and sitting in the cold at a band competition last night didn't help, so the silver polishing wiped me out and I had to take a two hour nap. Jerry suggested I might have mono, and as soon as he said it I remembered my friend in high school whose mono started with such a stiff neck she was taking muscle relaxers. I hope it's not mono; I sure don't have time for that!

The silver after cleaning.

Jerry has really stepped up with the cooking, though. Last night he made delicious and low-carb peanut-encrusted tilapia and today he made me coconut chicken soup using my 6-hour broth recipe. I threw in oregano and thyme. Oregano is a powerful natural antibiotic and thyme is wonderful for respiratory complaints. It revived me enough to go up and finish a new doll and book set for my store and do a bunch of the kids' mending.

Looking at all the pastries in my photo set up, Jerry asked, "What is this, water-boarding for people on Atkins?" I do have sugar on the brain! We are trying this carb night diet from Women's World where you keep your carbs under 30 grams all week, but every fourth day you eat all the carbs you want from 6PM-midnight. This is supposed to switch up your hormone production and promote weight loss. I'm not seeing it so far, but carb night is a lot of fun!

This embroidery is called Hardanger, after the region of Norway where it originated.

The china cabinet filled with Spode and silver.

Speaking of the eBay store, now Ebay has set it up so you have to have followers like Pinterest. I don't have a single one and it looks pitiful! So please, visit my store and follow me on eBay! http://stores.ebay.com/atelier-mandaline.