Caring for your jewelry

Once you get your necklace, bracelet and/or earrings, you'll need to give them a little TLC to make sure they continue to sparkle. Here are a few tips and hints.

Removing tarnish from silver

I personally use old-fashioned white toothpaste (the kind with no baking soda or abrasives), a little warm water and my fingers on most of my sterling silver, silver-filled and silver-plated wire. But for just plain silver jewelry you can also get good results using commercial silver dip liquid, polish paste, or polish cloth. Once you've removed the tarnish,keep your jewelry stored in plastic bags or air-tight containers. This is especially good for copper.

Be very careful of jewelry with gemstones. Particularly delicate stones (and this list is, by no means, inclusive) are:

Amber
Coral
Emeralds
Malachite
Mother of pearl
Opals
Pearls
Peridot
Unstabilized turquoise

Here's some solutions from reputable sources:

From Real Simple magazine: How to Clean Jewelry
Reader's Digest magazine: 12 Home Cleaning Products For Cleaning Jewelry
American Society of Appraisers: Jewelry Cleaning
Good Housekeeping magazine: Speed-Clean your Jewelry
Here's a solution using common household ingredients from one of my favorite bloggers, Rena Klingenberg:
Clean Tarnished Silver Jewelry. Please read the warning at the end of the article about using this method for jewelry with precious or semi-precious stones.

For information on the difference between sterling silver and silver-filled wire, see the About page.

All work guaranteed

If your piece breaks, please return it(with as many pieces as possible), and I will repair or replace it free of charge.

Note: I make a conscious effort to use recycled materials as often as possible as well as made in the U.S.A. The booth I use at festivals is 80% recycled, salvaged or second-hand material. Beads and materials are purchased locally, where available, in support of our area businesses. Metals used: Lead-free pewter, sterling silver, lead-free/nickel-free silver plate and silver-fill wire, salvaged copper.

As with all my jewelry, most of my focal points, and even a lot of my beads, are one-of-a-kind. If the piece you like has been sold, I'll do my best to make one similar to it.