Cleaning Sterling Silver

Today's post will hopefully be useful--how to clean your sterling silver jewelry. When I make jewelry for others, I tell them to store it carefully in a plastic bag to avoid tarnish that naturally occurs with sterling silver. I, on the other hand, throw most of my jewelry in a heap either next to the shower (okay, on the toilet lid) or on my dresser. Such a hypocrite, I know :) About once a month or when I notice my once bright sterling has become brown and gross, I decide it's time to clean. For jewelry that's not too intricate, I use my silver polishing cloth to wipe the tarnish off--these things work great and you can find them at Kmart and Walmart. For more detailed pieces, especially my crochet wirework that I can't get a cloth into, I use plain old baking soda, hot water and aluminum foil. There's a bunch of science behind how the tarnish attaches to the foil, etc., but I won't bore you with all that. It just works. Of course I have to add that this method is at your own risk--if you're worried about damaging your great-great-grandmother's antique ring, maybe just to be safe you should go to a jeweler. I've heard you should be careful with pearls or fragile gemstones with this method, but I've used this technique for a long time and so far, so good. I haven't used it on pearls, but I have used it with soft gemstones, like fluorite. Here's how: 1. Put about 2 cups of water on to boil. 2. Find a pan, dish or bowl that's big enough to lay whatever you want cleaned flat on the bottom, and can hold up to boiling water. I don't clean more than a few items at a time. 3. Line the pan with aluminum foil making sure to cover all the sides. You want to create a foil liner. 4. Place your jewelry in the pan making sure it's completely flat and touching the foil. 5. Cover the jewelry with an adequate layer of baking soda. Make sure your pan isn't too shallow because when you add water to baking soda, it foams up quite a bit. 6. Slowly pour the boiling water over your jewelry. Swish your jewelry around a bit with some sort of utensil, then add some more hot water and keep foaming it until you either have no more room for water, or the foaming stops. 7. Carefully take your jewelry out of the hot water and rinse with water until no residue remains. 8. Gently towel dry your jewelry and enjoy! Hopefully that works as well for you as it does for me. This technique is GREAT for sterling chains, though you might need to repeat it for really bad tarnish. This is a pretty common technique, so if you find yourself needing pictures or more info, just search for 'cleaning jewelry with baking soda' in Google--you'll get lots of results. Cari Taylor Wired Originals