Wifey Wednesday

Hubby is out with the fellows tonight, so I'd love to share a wife-skill every girl simply must know: How to polish silver. Call me old-fashioned, but I just adore taking care of pretty things. When I noticed my silver around the house was looking a little dull, I knew I had to take action.

First, I rounded up all the silver in the house and then whipped out ol' trusty:

All it took was a little bit of elbow grease...

...and these magical beauties took my silver boxes, pitchers, trivets and trays from drab to fab in no time

Bottom line: Wear gloves. Polishing silver is not a good activity for manicure day. Work the polish into your silver piece and then buff it off with the buffing cloth. It's that simple! The key is to buff for longer than you think you need to. Streaky silver isn't classy.

Also, I'll take this time to urge every bride to use your pretty wedding gifts. Do you think your grandmother gave you those trays so you could store them in your closet? My biggest pet-peeve is lovey gifts stored away for "later." Personally, I think there's always time to enjoy the small delights in life, even if you're living in a teeny tiny apartment with linoleum kitchen floors. Not a wife? Not a problem (duh). Everyone deserves to have a clean and pretty place to live. Buy some fun pieces and start a great collection. Stack those china saucers on your coffee table, serve post-dinner coffee in your china coffee pot, serve special dinners on your fancy plates, hang plates all over your walls (the ladies in my family are dangerously obsessed with plates and china patterns, obvi more to come on that another time). You have it to use it! Here's to making your home a pleasant place to be!