Cleaning Sterling Silver

We recently had my son's 18 month pictures taken and I wanted to get a new family picture along with them. For my birthday last year one of my best friends gave me a necklace that I LOVE and I wanted to wear it for pictures; the only problem: the silver was tarnished :( I didn't think to buy any silver cleaner ahead of time, so there I was, the morning of pictures and no way to clean the tarnished [and beloved] necklace. Google....here I come! I simply typed in "Homemade silver cleaner" and I got my answer in just a few seconds! - MAN! I love the internet!

So here's the solution:

Supplies:
baking dish
aluminum foil
1 t salt
1 t baking soda
water

Line the baking dish with the aluminum foil and spread the jewelry out on the foil. Boil as much water as needed to cover all the silver pieces. Once water is boiling, remove from heat and add baking soda and salt. (Be careful, if you just throw both into rolling water - it overflows and gets EVERYWHERE!) Pour water/baking soda/salt mixture over jewlery. Allow water to cool and take silver out of the dish. Rinse with water, pat dry (or air dry) and *voila* sparkling silver!

Proof is in the pictures
(sort of...my camera didn't do this justice!)

This will be my main method of cleaning jewelry from now on! Ofcorse, with these pictures above, I realize the bracelet could use a little more cleaning, but I was too impatient ;)

Oh, and the [18 month/family] pictures turned out AMAZINGLY well!

Live, Love & Laugh
~Mel