Cleaning Silver Jewelry

How to:  

 

 

 

Jewelry care for Silver Jewelry starts with protecting your pieces from things that will harm.

 

 

 

 

 

You should protect your jewelry from scratching, chemicals, extreme temperatures, swimming pools and intense sunlight.

 

Sounds sensible, right?

 

 

 

You can clean silver jewelry regularly with warm soapy water. Rinse the piece well, pat dry with a soft cloth and polish gently with a jewelry polishing cloth. Making sure your piece is dry, you can store your pieces in zip-lock bags. There are even some zip-lock bags now with tarnish resistant properties and some jewelry boxes with tarnish resistant inserts. Just make sure the specific piece will not be harmed by water. (Leather, for example.)

 

 

 

Silver Jewelry presents special problems at times. Weather, especially high humidity, can make pieces tarnish quicker.

 

 

 

The atmosphere in beauty salons will quickly tarnish silver. Best to leave good silver pieces at home when going to a beauty salon.

 

 

In most all of my silver pieces, I use Argentium Sterling Silver. Argentium Silver tarnishes very, very slowly. All Sterling Silver must contain 92.5% silver. Refined 99.99% silver or Fine Silver, is very soft and not used in pieces that get a lot of wear. (Fine Silver does not tarnish) Regular sterling silver has copper added to make it harder, which is the reason for the tarnishing. Germanium to replaces some of the copper in Argentium Sterling Silver.  This addition slows down the tarnishing. 

 

 

In addition to using Argentium Sterling Silver, all my silver pieces are tumbled for several hours to make each piece shine brilliantly.

 

 

 

 

Then washing with soapy water if the piece gets sticky or with just general wearing usually will keep your piece shining nicely for a long time. Remember to store properly.

 

 

You can read more about  Argentium Silver  on my website.

 

If your pieces get tarnished such that washing will not work any more, I'll be happy to tumble them for you. The difference is really amazing.

 

There are many "dips" available, also,  to remove tarnish. I have a jar and use it occasionally.  The thing to remember about dips is that they remove the tarnish chemically and thus take away some of the silver. Other methods should be tried first. Sometimes just polishing with a silver cleaning cloth will be sufficient after soap and water. Never use dips on silver plate jewelry. There is not enough silver to withstand the removal of any silver. I do dip my thin silver chains as they can get tangled when being tumbled. Running silver chain through a polishing cloth should be the first thing to try.

 

Also, on mixed pieces - silver with pearls for example shouldn't be dipped. Crystals are usually OK. Soft gemstones - no.

 

I hope this information was helpful. If you have any questions about cleaning jewelry be sure to ask.

 

Time to start shopping for graduation gifts?  Check out the silver jewelry on Ring by Ring Designs website.  (I have many more silver pieces that are not on the website so contact me if you want to see more.)

 

Be sure to check out my YouTube video of Chain Maille designs.

 

Cleaning Silver

I had a class Monday teaching the Chain Maille pattern "Byzantine Rose" (see above)

The conversation turned to cleaning silver. Well, I added that my favorite thing for that is to use Argentium Silver. I have a page on my web site about why. The other thing is to tumble the pieces. Since I have a home show tomorrow, I've been busy cleaning my pieces. I haven't done that since spring and the summer added some tarnish to the clasps on most of my non-Chain Maille pieces. My Chain Maille is better protected but still looked a bit dull.

One of the things I suggested to my class was washing all silver pieces with soap and water. I seem to be a bit sloppy I guess and they get almost sticky. Interestingly enough, I just proved that idea to myself. I got out my tumbler and put in about half of my stash of Chain Maille bracelets in the tumbler. After two hours of tumbling I took out the nice shiny pieces and then realized I had not added the shot. So, I had basically washed the bracelets in soap and water.

I'm now tumbling the second half with shot and am anxious to see if there is much difference.


B

PS: The shot does make a difference if there is tarnish. Soap cleans and polishes so if there is no tarnish, it alone is fine. But why not just add the shot too?

www.bevsjewelry.com and www.bevsjewelry.1000markets.com

Spring Cleaning

Well, spring is finally here, I think. Though I still hear about snow flakes here and there. The sun is out more than not, our forsythia, outside, is showing lots of yellow. The crocus are up and some daffodils and tulips are showing green.

For me, as a Jewelry Designer, it means time to take stock and clean out from the winter "pile it here" until later. The taxes are finished. Every year, it seems I get frustrated all over again with getting my business information together. I figure, next year will be different. It just seems to take more time that I feel it should.

So, I have a big question for all of my readers. Do you get into the same "rut" and if so, do you plan to make changes? What changes do you plan to make? I really think we could come up with some great ideas to help each other.

I'll start.

With me, it isn't that I don't know what to do (mostly) but actually doing what I should is the hard part. For example, keeping good records. I have a great program to help with inventory. (Jewelry Designer Manager). However, I need to remember to enter new purchases. (I do that fairly well) BUT I need to remember to remove items as I use them and then add the finished piece to my inventory. That seems to be my down fall.

I noticed another problem as I started to clean up. I found about four pieces unfinished. Strange why things are not finished. Some how making new things is more fun.

So, let me know what your problems are and more importantly, what can we do to fix the problem. Waiting to hear.

Tagging jewelry

On Tuesday, I talked about my experience of leaving an Elephant Hyde dumbbell label on a piece of jewelry while I tumbled it to clean and shine it. Well, after you remove the labels to clean the piece, you need to put an new label on the piece. Great fun ... but a part of the business. One of my personal pet peeves is going to a store or craft fair and not having pieces priced. So... I need to bite the bullet and just do it!

That said, it is not the easiest thing to do. Maneuvering the little dumbbells (cute name) so that they stay on the piece with out sticking to it and still making that nice little round label. People ask me how I can maneuver my little rings for my chain maille. Sometimes that is easier than putting on those little dumbbell labels. (I'm getting to like that name, dumbbell!)

This is a break from putting on labels. (Did you guess?) So, back to work. The sidewalk show is tomorrow and no more putting it off! If you are in the area, the show is a Homespun Treasures in North Easton, MA from 10 AM to 5 PM Saturday, September 20, 2008. That is at the intersection of Rt 138 and Main Street. Near the Dunken Donuts. (Now that is a well known landmark)

B

More on Cleaning Jewelry

The subject of cleaning jewelry, in my opinion, is full of just that - lots of opinions and experiences mostly dependant on the composition of the piece.

Before, I go into what I've found for cleaning jewelry, I would like to offer two suggestions to prevent the necessity for cleaning.

1) For most pieces, using common sense is one of the best suggestions. Keep jewelry away from perfumes, dirt, and sticky things. Make sense? Keep the piece as clean possible and keep chemicals away.

2) When not wearing your pieces, protect them. Silver can be kept in zip lock bags (to keep the air away) or in silver protective, soft cloth bags. Other pieces should be stored in dust free places. Make sense? Protect them from the elements.

OK, now your favorite piece is dirty. What to do?

As a first step, usually items can be washed in gentle soap, rinsed and dried. I often wear my silver chain maille bracelets in the shower. Because I wear them all the time, they tend to get just everyday dirty - like me. A shower works wonders.

If you have copper in your piece, rub with a mixture of lemon juice and salt. Lots of salt. The new penny look will come right back. It is suggested that you then rinse in a mixture of baking soda and water. This stops the chemical reaction and avoids any possible pitting. I usually follow this treatment with tumbling which adds shine.

Then there are the dips and sonic cleaners and shining cloths. Leather is an entirely different ball of wax. Silver plate, gold plate and some other metals just wear out (in my opinion) and there isn't much you can do to make them brighter again. Ribbons might need to be replaced.

When I started this post, I forgot how many, many ways there are to clean jewelry. However, my first two points, I think are the most important. Treat your jewelry well. Then, call Bev if you need more ideas or suggestions.

B

Cleaning Jewelry

After you have been selling jewelry for awhile you get the question: "How do I clean it?"

I specifically received the question from someone who purchased a Lexie's choker. There are several Bali silver spacers between the Swarovski pearls. Cleaning silver has always been easy for me if the piece is all silver. I just tumble the piece. It comes out nice and bright and shiny. (By the way, since I own a tumbler, if you live near by, I'll be happy to tumble your silver.)

Many people use the dip type of cleaner. That is sometimes the best but doesn't give a shine and does remove some of the silver in doing its job. But what do you do when you have a mixture of silver and say pearls as in Lexie's choker?

Well, I was visiting Miachelle's Blog yesterday and she posed the question of using Tabasco or toothpaste to clean jewelry. Her conclusion was that the Tabasco didn't do much but that toothpaste did clean well. I'm going to try it on the Bali spacers. Her recommendation was to use a gentle, nonabrasive toothpaste and use your fingers rather than a brush. That way, the pearls or other beads will not be harmed.

You can read the whole post at: http://inkslinginwoman.blogspot.com/ (Her blog is on my Blog list on the right hand column of this page)

Let me know if you have used toothpaste or now will try it.

B