Frugal Silver Polish

I’ve had some family heirloom baby cutlery languishing in my flatware drawer for longer that Daughter has been around, and I unfortunately never used it for her because it was so tarnished.  I’ve been decluttering a lot in the last year or so, and I finally decided to either keep that family heirloom stuff for use with visiting little ones and get rid of the natty plastic stuff or keep the natty plastic stuff and get rid of the silver.  This resolution coincided with me coming across this blog post, where Jen of My Make Do and Mend Year talks about polishing silver with a banana peel and some baking soda.  Needless to say, I felt compelled to try this before going out and buying silver polish (which, frankly, stinks and brings back some unpleasant childhood memories).

Before I polished the baby spoons, with decades of tarnish on them

Jen’s directions involve blending a banana peel with baking soda and water to make a paste, but I’m lazy efficient by nature and cheated by just dumping baking soda on the mushy inside of the peel and massaging the peel together until I got a paste.  Then I used the banana peel to rub the paste onto the spoons, mostly so that I would not have to clean a rag, and added more baking soda.  I’ll be darned if it didn’t work like a charm!  Afterwards, I just dumped the banana peels into the compost bucket and washed the cutlery normally.

After I polished them with banana peel and baking soda

Voila!  I’m still a little stunned, because not everything works out that comes off the internet, but it certainly worked well enough that I’ll never buy silver polish again.  Bananas, people, who knew?

Curry Stains

Sometimes, if you’re like me, you end up with curry stains on clothing or tablecloths, particularly after a particularly lively curry take-away dinner.  The yellow stain, left behind by turmeric, is nearly impossible to get out with detergent, but I have a discovered a trick to this.  A friend from India told me that her mother leaves the stain out to bleach in the sun for a few hours and then washes out the oil stain as normal.  Eager to try this, I stuck a tablecloth with a big curry stain on it outside the next time the sun was bright and, lo and behold, the stain is gone!  An oil stain is left behind, but I can get at that with shampoo.

Apparently, the dye in turmeric is reactive with the sun, and fades if it hasn’t been set by ammonia.  Who knew?

This year’s Lambeth Country Show

I’m up to my eyeballs in writing my dissertation, but I wanted to share the link to the programme for this year’s Lambeth Country Show.  It’s this weekend, and you can find information about it here.

If you get a chance, it is good fun.

Dig for Victory! (for free)

I just wanted to share the updated BBC website for free gardening seeds and tips.  I’ve ordered a pack of free seeds, and Daughter and I are eager to start planting now that spring is truly here.

The website is here, but I don’t know if they will send seeds outside of the UK…

Egg dye, the old fashioned way

I am so excited this year, I am actually going to dye eggs with natural products.  I know this sounds a bit goofy, but egg dye is a bit hard to come by over here.  Well, it used to be, and now it just seems that what is available is a vague Paas replacements (i.e. not quite right).   I had several egg dye kits packed away from previous years, but this is the first year that I don’t have any to use.

I’ll be using the method outlined by Martha Stewart here.  I thought I would mention it now because the onion skins in particular need saving up.  We always have beets and red cabbage around, not to mention coffee and tea.  I think the only thing I really have to get is the turmeric, but I might be able to borrow that one off of the neighbors…

Also, if you are wondering where eggs for dying would have come from during the War, I am willing to bet that the clever house wife actually blew her eggs out and dyed the shells.  If anyone knows, please let me know, also if anyone has any other ideas for natural dyes.