Cleaning the Silver

So my bestie is having a baby in February and I'm totally stoked because she's having a GIRL!!! 

I live in a world of constant wrestling, stepping on Legos and showing off.  Lots of testosterone in this house with these boys.

Since she's having a girl I want her baby shower to be as girly and pink as possible without looking like an ad for a Pepto Bismo commercial. 

I pulled out the silver and went to Michaels and bought the most beautiful pink ribbons and flowers I could find to make her shower just lovely.  It's a garden tea party theme, but I'm not going overboard, I promise! (More to come later on the shower, it's not until Sunday.)

Back to the real story, when I pulled out my silver, it was of course tarnished, because as I mentioned earlier, I do not live in a world of frilly pretty things on a day to day basis.  So how do you clean silver without silver cleaner?  To answer that question of course I turned to Pinterest!

I found a post (I can't find it now, should have pinned it), which told me to line my sink in aluminum foil and soak my silver in HOT water and baking soda. Didn't go so well...

My bowl looks like I've soaked it in black dye. So, I tried a different approach.  According to Real Simple, you can use toothpaste, how really simple!  Perfect because I totally had that! I used Colgate White Clean and an old toothbrush I had just for this kind of project.

 

I took out my silver pedestaland went to work covering it in toothpaste (no pictures my hands were covered in it) and then took an old toothbrush and scrubbed using circular motions.  It made the biggest difference...

Look how shiny!

Woot! Woot!  Now my besties shower will be just gorge with all the shiny silver!