Homemade Jewelry Cleaner

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Have you ever needed to clean your jewelry and didn't have any cleaner? 
My Grandma used to make her own, and told me the recipe a long time ago.
If your in a pinch and need some quick, this is good because most people have these things on hand. This is all I've ever used and it works perfectly! I wear silver and white gold jewelry, & my husbands ring is titanium  and its never harmed anything I own. Quite the opposite, its made it all very shiny!!

Also I use toothpaste to clean my silver jewelry that is a little tarnished.The paste kind works best, instead of the gel.. I just use a old tooth brush on it and rinse well when I'm done then put it in the homemade cleaner, shiny! {see below}

What you Need

Ammonia
Dish Soap ( I used Dawn, but you can use any)
Water

You can make as much or as little as you need, just use equal parts of all 3 ingredients. I used about 1 Tablespoon of each for this batch, if you put it in a lil container that has a lid, it will lasts forever!! {or at least until it gets too dirty and needs to be changed out} ツ 

 I use a tooth brush on my rings, to get in all the crevices.

All clean! {Its hard to take a picture with one hand ans zoom in AND keep still!}

Necklace that has some tarnish.. 

You can fix that with a little dab of ToothPaste!

I usually work it between my fingers first, then use a damp toothbrush, but I was trying to keep my camera hand toothpaste free! ツ 

After the toothpaste rub down/scrub, rinse all the toothpaste off and soak in the jewelry cleaner for about 10 minutes, rinse well and dry.

All clean && Shiny!!

Also if you have a jewelry box, and you have lots of sterling silver jewelry, take a piece of foil {doesn't have to be big} and ball it up a little and keep it in your jewelry box, that will help the silver from getting tarnished so fast! Or you can take a piece of foil and place you silver in it and fold it up in there.
Now you have some Homemade Jewelry Cleaner that actually works!
Your welcome... ツ 

Now go get your jewelry that needs to be cleaned and make some cleaner!

Making Art with Foil & Shoe Polish

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I saw this project on Pinterest and wanted to try it. I thought it looked kind of like the old tin ceiling tiles. Sort of...
I made several of them  ツ   I thought it was fun!
The original post is here but I also used this one, for reference also.

 You want to use either a coloring page (one that doesn't have to much detail as its really hard to make the glue stay in the lines sometimes) or you can make a freehand drawing or design. You can draw your design on paper and do a transfer method to your cardboard if you don't want the cut out lines.(more about cut out lines later)

This would be a good craft to do with an older child on a rainy/snowy day, or any day for that matter! 

Here is what you need:

Cardboard
Foil (any kind)
Glue stick
Aleene's Tacky Glue
Liquid Black Shoe Polish (the kind with the sponge)
Dull Pencil (with soft eraser)
Q-tips
Paper Towel or Soft Rag

First draw/glue your design on the cardboard (I used cereal boxes for my cardboard) any kind of cardboard will work, except corrugated, it has lines that will show through, if you want the lines as part of your design that's okay, by all means use the corrugated. ツ 

I glued my paper right to the cardboard but be aware the the paper cut out line will show through (on the giraffe, I incorporated that right into my design) I cut it out in a wavy line and used the tacky glue to "draw" my outline. I also did it on my dream catcher (below) and left it how it was, I didn't use glue to outline. 

You can see my wavy cut out line (plus I made it more prominent by using the Q-tip & eraser, I'll incorporate it into my design later) You won't see the eraser lines either, when its finished!

I'll post a completed picture when I'm done. I'm also doing a Ying-Yang design for my hubby ♥♥ for Valentines day ...shhhhh  ツ  I'll post that one after Valentines Day.

♥║║
╚══╝

See my wavy cut out line?

Trace your design with the tacky glue, be patient and take your time...

Giraffe

My Freehand design - Sun Moon & Stars

Once your done "drawing" your design with glue, let it dry thoroughly.

 Once its dry, tear off a piece of foil a few inches longer than your cardboard, so it can wrap around the back of the cardboard.

With your glue stick, glue either the foil or the design make sure to go over the whole thing, so it sticks good (I did both )

Gently press down on the foil with your hand and fingers to make it stick to the cardboard. I used a Q-Tip and a eraser to outline the glue lines (See below)  don't press hard or it will poke through the foil! 

This is part of my dream catcher - using Q-tip, eraser and very lightly traced glue lines with a pencil.

I also used the dull pencil to trace the glue lines, be very gentle if you decide to do that too.

Once you are done with that step, with the dull pencil start drawing the detail and also filling the blank spaces with some designs... I tried to think of little designs that went with the picture. For example, my Bama one, I used football's and A's and filled in the rest with misc. designs and letters. You can use anything you want.

When you feel you have covered the picture with enough detail, using the shoe polish, go over the whole thing, let it sit several minutes then wipe it off with the paper towel or rag. Make sure not to wipe so hard it wipes all the polish from the design indentations. I kind of liked the look with a little still left on there (not totally wiped off )but you can wipe as much or as little as you like.
When your satisfied with how it looks, let it dry. It will scratch off easily, if it's not completely dry. Once its dry, then it doesn't come off so easy.

Tip:
* Regular Elmer's glue wont work, it spreads out to much and gets flat.
* You can use any kind of foil but I would recommend using the heavy duty, as its stronger and the thin stuff will poke holes to easily!* You might want to "draw" your design with the glue the night before so it can dry over night.

Bama

Giraffe

Sun, Moon & Stars

**Update - here is my dream catcher that I said I would post when I was finished...

Most of all..... just have fun, be creative!!