UFBS project

Not a UFO - a UFBS! An Unfinished Blinged Shuttle project!

You may remember that a sub-set of the Palmetto Tat Gals has gotten together for an overnight or two to tat and chat and giggle and other things. (Like eat.) And you may remember the occasion when we blinged shuttles. Note - this was also the event which resulted in The Lamp Shade Photo.

Well, when I returned home after said outing, my stash of partially blinged shuttles was put into a bag. Where they stayed for months and months. Unfinished. Sad, really. A waste of good shuttles.

This past week, those six sad unfinished shuttles were found. And they are sad no more. For I broke out the Mod-Podge and my x-acto knife and finished those suckers!

I trimmed up the edges and slapped 2 coats on Mod-Podge on both sides. They're all shiny and cute now! If you look (click on the picture), you'll see that the middle one on the right has a teeny-tiny Stumpy on it. Most are embellished with paper, but the one on the bottom right is cloth.

And here are the reverse sides. Some have sparkles too. I'm happy with these! I'm not ready to sell any, but I'm perfectly happy to use these myself. And I have no UFBS projects left. For now...

I did tat a little something, earrings for my friend SC's birthday. She was delighted....

Cleaning Silver - an off-topic tutorial

I lost my cloth I've used to clean silver - you know, a flannel cloth that has some kind of chemical that you can use to wipe tarnish off of small things.  It's vanished from my bathroom - no one seems to know what happened.  Maybe elves took it.

So I took it upon myself to figure out some other way to do this without resorting to the same polish I use for my table silver.  I had heard of a method using aluminum foil, and I thought I'd try.  And guess what, it works!

Here's how to do it:

Take a saucepan - I recommend a very clean glass one, as it's non-reactive.  At least a quart size is good.
A square of aluminum foil about 12" by 12", folded up and put into the bottom of the saucepan.
A teaspoon of table salt
A teaspoon of baking soda

Fill the saucepan about half full of water and put everything in it.  Bring the water to a good boil - and drop your silver in it.  If your water has boiled, you should see a difference almost immediately.  Take the silver out and polish it with a soft cloth. 

I don't recommend you use this with silver that has things glued to it, or if the silver has soft gemstones in it, like pearls, turquoise, or emeralds.

Before - all tarnishy and nasty and black.  You can't tell that pin is a dragonfly.

During.  Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble.

After.  All bright and shiny.

The aluminum was all icky and nasty afterwards.  I won't show you that.