What I Know About Silver . . .

. . . nothing really. Except I absolutely despise polishing it. And I dislike tarnished silver even more than I dislike polishing it. I have no idea what is good silver and what manufacturers are good. I don't know much about silver plating vs. the good stuff. I buy what I love and what I will use.

This cute little dish was calling out to me the other day. It was didn't cost very much, nobody wanted it. I rescued it and with a little bit of work, it sure is pretty. I know I had to have it when I saw the fleur de lis around the rim! Get out! I couldn't believe my eyes. For a while I had no idea what I would use it for. Then I realized, I NEVER put my keys on the key rack because I am always dumping them on the table. Why not make this a key dish? Of course, my keys weren't worthy of being in a pretty dish like this, so I had to find a big skeleton key and add it to my key ring. (Yes, I am that anal-retentive ... although you would never know this if you walked through my house. The thing about ARs is that we never have enough time to be AR about everything, unless I sent my family to live in a motel. Add being a creative-distracted person, and WOW -- my house can fall apart really fast. I digress . . . )
Now again, I know nothing about silver, but when I saw these salt and pepper shakers for $2.00/set, I had, had, had to have them. They are really heavy and solid. The pepper shaker is a pepper mill (I have been wanting to get one of those). They actually have a home right on my kitchen table so we can use them every day. I use everything I have on a regular basis, with one exception: My china. I use my nice china for a cup of tea every night, but I don't want the kiddos to break the dishes so I don't use them for dinner.
The other items in this picture, left to write: a cream urn (which has shells in it) and a creamer, again - 2 things nobody wanted and I snatched up immediately. I have a thing for cream dishes lately. They are beautiful and simple. The mossy urn I recently picked up at The Old Lucketts Store. I haven't been able to go buy a topiary for it, so instead I filled it with packing peanuts and topped it off with moss. If you try this, wet the moss and then squeeze it out first. This will help you to shape it better. It doesn't smell very good, but it dries out and the smell goes away.

I recently found one more REALLY COOL silver piece, but I'm not ready to show it to you just yet. It is a very tricky one to polish and is going to take me a few days to clean up. It has a very unique shape. Curious? You're just going to have to wait.