The following tutorial for cleaning your tarnished silver jewelry was written by Lynne Morgan of 7 Yaks Design and originally posted here. Lynne has studied metals & jewelry design at the Cleveland Institute of Art where she also minored in fiber and learned the art of dyeing fabric, wool and yarn. You can find her beautifully dyed yarns as well as jewelry supplies at her Etsy shop or follow her on Twitter.
You can make all your tarnished silver jewelry look like new in 10 minutes using materials you already have laying around the house. This technique works on all your sterling and fine silver jewelry. Also, it’s safe for delicate stones and pearls. Unlike the acid based cleaning solutions! And unlike acid based cleaners, you don’t have to buff and polish the finish back onto your pieces. It is such a mild process that it eliminates any handwork.
Here is all you need:
Baking Soda
Aluminum Foil
Glass Casserole Dish
To get started line a glass dish with aluminum foil and place your jewelry on top. You can fit quite a bit in but don’t overlap pieces and make sure each piece is touching the foil.
Sprinkle the baking soda so that it covers the jewelry. It doesn’t have to be really heavy, think of it like putting a dusting of sugar on your cereal
Note: Don’t put any kind of steel in with your jewelry to be cleaned. The reason is complicated, but if you don’t want any complications just don’t do it.
Boil enough water to cover everything, either in the microwave* or on the stovetop, then pour this over the jewelry and baking soda. Let soak for 10 minutes.
(*Martha Stewart moment… A side benefit to heating water in the microwave is that while your jewelry is soaking you can take a clean cloth and wipe out the microwave of any residue or splatters and have a sparkly oven too. The steam created from boiling water there loosens everything up and makes cleaning a dream.)
Once the time is up, rinse under WARM water and put on a towel to dry. You don’t want to shock your jewelry with cold water because this has the potential to cause delicate stones and glass to crack or break!
The tarnish is transferred from your jewelry to the foil effortlessly. For pieces with excessive tarnish it may take 2 dips to make them completely shiny.
This method is so easy and inexpensive that you will want to do everything you own and then look for more. You will never think of using anything else to clean your silver jewelry again.
By the way… this is how I keep all my jewelry at www.sevenyaks.etsy.com clean.
