I have been cruising a lot of second hand stores lately looking for pieces for our new house, while I haven’t been able to find any useful furniture or lamps, today I came across two tarnished silver cups. I was pretty sure from looking at them closely that they weren’t just silver coated and figured for $5, why not give them a second chance at shine.

Billy Balls remind me of our wedding because they were a big part of our flower arrangements and when I saw them today at Metropolitan Market, I was delighted.

I used a couple of techniques to shine the cups. To remove the majority of the tarnish, I lined a pot with foil and then poured a combination of 1 quart of boiling water, 1/4 cup baking soda and 2 tsp of salt, cover and let zest for up to 5 minutes – rinse with warm water. Then I used some traditional metal cleaner and finally a silver polish cloth. Check out the results of a little elbow grease on the silver cups.

-h