How to: Clean Silver Jewellery

Today’s post is a little different. Before my Nan died a few years ago she gave me her wedding rings. She was allergic to gold, so all of her jewellery was silver. I never felt comfortable wearing it (too scared I’d lose it!) so I always kept it in my jewellery box. After a long while just sitting in there I saw that it had started to tarnish and turn black – here’s how I got it cleaned up again.

For this mini DIY project I used a Tiffany ring of mine that had gotten a little tarnished by coming into contact with my spot cream – it’s super strong haha!

This isn’t appropriate for gold jewellery, or jewellery with gemstones by the way!

You’ll need everything in this picture – including a kettle!

This is what my ring looked like before.

The back of the ring is what the front it supposed to look like!

Line a small dish with some aluminium foil.

Put your silver jewellery inside.

Add one teaspoon of baking soda (or powder!)

Sprinkle over one teaspoon of salt.

Fill the dish with boiling water.

Wait 30 seconds. If it’s fizzing and smells like rotten eggs then it’s working – gross I know!

Stir & remove, it'll be really hot!

Rinse and brush with an old toothbrush to increase shine.

Voila.

I also did this with a necklace that my mum got me for my 21^st and it looks new again!

What are your tips for getting jewellery clean?

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DIY Studded Shoes ..

Some of my older followers may remember these shoes from a H&M haul a few months back. Whilst I did really like them when I bought them (a steal at £14.99!), for some reason they’ve just been gathering dust in my wardrobe.

I love the gold caps!

I’ve been wanting to do some DIY stuff recently, and so I bought some studs from eBay. However, when they arrived they were quite a bit bigger than I was expecting.

So what better idea than to jazz up my abandoned shoes.

Starting in the middle, I put seven studs on the front just behind the gold cap. The studs work a bit like split pins so they won't dig into my feet while I’m wearing them.

I wanted to put four studs down the back seams, but it was so difficult to get the studs in the seam I decided to leave it at just two.

Finished product

Front

Back.

In case you were wondering, I bought my studs from this seller - £5.95 for 50 inc. P&P.

Have you done any recent DIY projects?

Don't forget to enter my MAC lipstick giveaway! xx

DIY Mineral Nail Varnish: BM Beauty in 'Her Majesty'

Picture heavy post!

Last month LuxBox released their first beauty box – blogged here – and whilst I was pleasantly surprised there was item that had popped up in a previous GlossyBox that I really didn’t like.

In theory the BM Eyeshadows are right up my street; they’re mineral based and I love mineral makeup. However, it wasn’t the product itself I had the issue with. The issue was with the colours.

‘Wolf Howl’ and ‘Her Majesty’ respectively, are very glorified names for a garish purple and a very bright pink. I honestly take my virtual hat off to anyone who can pull these colours off, but as a girl who shies away from shadows anyway, these weren’t for me.

Beauty Box Swappers was flooded with these up for swaps, with not many takers so I knew swapping wasn’t an option.

Source

Que brainwave.

I’d heard of some people grinding up their broken shadows and blushes and using them as pigments for nail varnishes, so my loose, garish purple and bright pink were perfect.

Here’s how I did it:

I used an MUA clear nail varnish; at just £1 it’s a complete steal for stuff like this.

SO.

I laid down some paper over the dining table, loose powders can be very messy and I didn’t fancy a new pink table!

I made a little funnel out of a small piece of paper and some sellotape, stuck it in the top of the varnish and tapped the shadow in.

I added about a quarter of the pot, removed the funnel and put the brush back in. Looks like a mini nuclear disaster. (Yes, I’m a geek)

I shook it for about 30 seconds, let it rest for 10 seconds and then shook it again just to make sure that all of the lumps were gone.

This is the swatch after it was mixed in, but I wanted it slightly more pigmented so I repeated the steps again.

Darker swatch.

My new ‘Her Majesty’ nail varnish :) and a whole heap of mess.

Really pleased with how it turned out, the pictures don’t show it well but it’s a very shimmery, golden pink.

I did this with ‘Wolf Howl’ too, but found that the shadow settles quite quickly. If you’ve got some small ball bearings around the house then they’d be perfect to drop in to help you revive the polish when you shake it back together.

Don't limit yourself to loose powders, you can crush pressed powders to use in DIY nail varnishes.

Have you got any powders you’ll be trying this with? Links if you do please :)