My one thing a day-throw away project is going well. I’m ahead of schedule, which is great, because it always gets so busy in the spring. I started with Christmas items as I put them away, headed into Connor’s closet for a little and now I’m going through my kitchen, one drawer/cabinet at a time. Cleaning, reorganizing and discarding as I go. It seems the more that I purge, the easier it gets. I’ve decided to make sure that when something new comes into my home, I’m going to get rid of something and not include it in my 365.
old silver-plated bowl
I’ve been taking a picture of each item, marking an “x” on my calendar and then placing it directly in the garbage or donation box in my hall closet. The picture is more for this project, but I found that with things that might have some sentimental value, it’s easier to put them in that box after photographing it. We hold on to things for many different reasons. I know my most difficult one is sentimental value.
So, I found this old silver-plated bowl that I got for my wedding. It is badly tarnished and I really dislike cleaning tarnished things, so most of them are already gone. I decided to see if I could upcycle this particular bowl. I did a quick search for alcohol inks and silver-plated items and didn’t get too much, so I thought I’d give it a try. What’s the worst that could happen?
I decided to leave it tarnished, got out the inks, some rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle and in a squeeze bottle, a straw to blow the ink around and laid out the newspaper. Starting with the back, I put some blues and yellow ink sprayed it with alcohol and blew it around.
Note: If trying this- put something waterproof under the newspaper and wear gloves!!! 
Quickly, I ran to get a garbage bag and slipped it under the newspaper just in time. I played around swirling the ink with my fingers, adding some drops of alcohol and rotating the bowl. Then I let it sit to dry. Five minutes later, I impatiently got out the heat gun. The ink was puddled in areas and wasn’t drying as fast as I would like. A little heat and it was quickly dry.
On the front, I used the heat gun to blow the ink in different ways, playing with moving the colors around. I used a toothpick to move the ink into some of the crevices.
Yikes! Not what I had in mind.
It was quite dark when it was finished… to dark for me and it just looked like it needed some more work. I decided to give it back some of it’s metallic past by using silver paint from another project.
With wet glaze
This paint, Metallic Silver Gloss by Homefront, is very thin and almost like a glaze. It didn’t meet my needs for my last project, but I thought it would work well for this. I slathered it first on the bottom applying it thickly to the outer edge, hoping it would be silver in certain areas when it was dry
after glaze dried
Better, but not great- this is how it looked when it dried.
After painting with Pewter
So I got out Pewter paint by Modern Masters and dry brushed over some areas, rubbing off a little with a wet rag.
Pewter Modern Masters Metallic Paint
The last step is an acrylic sealer I won’t be using this for food, more of a decorative piece, but I’m happy with my upcycle.
Tips: I used both Adirondack and Liquitex brand alcohol ink. I found the Adirondack to blend nicer on the silverplating.
Take home from this project: It’s OK to change things to suit your needs. Have you up cycled anything lately? Feel free to share.
