Green Housekeeping Tip: Polishing Silver

I've mentioned "A Guide To Green Housekeeping" on my blog before, and recently I found yet another opportunity to seek its advice for a house cleaning need. Since I'm incredibly "nesty" at the moment- my eye is constantly looking for little things to fix up and clean- thus our dark and shabby napkin rings caught my eye! Since I don't have silver polish in the house, I decided to look up an alternative in this book. THE result was awesome, I felt like a little kid in science class- amazed at the chemical reaction that cleaned our napkin rings. Sorry there is not a before picture, but just imagine the most dark and tarnished silver!

Here's the recipe on how to polish your silver:

Soak your silver in a pot of boiling water with baking soda, salt, cream of tartar and a piece of aluminum foil. THAT's It! It won't take very long at all for your silver to emerge sparkling clean, less than a minute. Afterwards- I suggest rinsing your silver in cold water to remove any baking soda chalkiness, and then immediately dry it to avoid water spots.  NOTE- I did not have cream of tartar- and the results were still successful. However, you will need all the other ingredients, it does not work without baking soda.

Happy green housekeeping!