Sweetwater Style: Copper Cleaning Magic!

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Copper Cleaning Magic!

I always keep an eye out for interesting copper items at the thrift store!

Over the years, I have collected quite a few pieces.

The earth tone of these pieces make them a natural choice for Fall Décor!

Now..some people might like the look of the aged patina of old copper.....

but sometimes a good polishing is in order.

Just like polishing silver.....polishing copper can be a real pain!

Enter my secret weapon!

Seriously.....this easy to find cleaner....works like magic on copper!

I got to work the other day scrubbing the "patina" off of some of my favorite copper items.

Yeah....they really were pretty awful looking!

This little colander or berry bow is one of my favorites.

Can you believe how grungy this looks?

I spent a chunk of time with the scrub brush and it came pretty clean.

Now...all that scrubbing wasn't really my thing....and I had a few more pieces to clean!.

Then....I had an aha moment!

Remember the "lazy woman's" way to polish silver?

That method relied on the chemistry of baking soda and aluminum foil in boiling water.

You can read about that here!

Well... I got the idea that maybe hot or boiling water might work with the bar keeper's friend to magically clean the copper!

So...I mixed some up in a pan and brought it a boil!

I used 1/4 cup in about 2 cups of water....but there really isn't a "recipe"!