Placesettings: winter wake-up with steel-cut oats
Posted: January 24, 2014 Filed under: Placesettings, Pyrex & Fire-King, Recipe, Vintage tablecloths | Tags: Catalin flatware, Fire King, Lu-Ray Pastels, vintage restaurantware, vintage tablecloth, yellow is a happy color Comments Off on Placesettings: winter wake-up with steel-cut oatsWe woke up to a bright and sunny, if very cold, morning today. After half an hour outdoors with the dog, we warmed up with piping hot bowls of steel-cut oats and strawberries.
I started with a bright tablecloth of daisies in red, yellow, and green. That’s a lot of wow for only three colors!
Then there’s a yellow Lu-Ray plate. Because yellow is a happy color, of course. The really old Sterling China bowl is perfect for oatmeal because the thick hotel china holds the heat.
I like steel cut oats a lot, they’re filling and they warm you right up on a cold morning. But I don’t like standing over the stove stirring them for thirty minutes till they’re cooked. Most mornings I have better things to do to get everyone out the door to work and school.
So I cook oatmeal the lazy way: overnight in a crockpot. Easy!
How I ruined–and revived– my Bakelite flatware handles, part 3
Posted: January 19, 2014 Filed under: Home and Garden | Tags: 409 Cleaner, Bakelite flatware, Bar Keeper's Friend, Blue Magic, Catalin flatware, cleaning Bakelite, cleaning Catalin Comments Off on How I ruined–and revived– my Bakelite flatware handles, part 3I promised a couple more Bakelite cleaning solutions for Part 3, but I decided to stop at just one more. All the other suggestions I found involved some sort of polishing compound–Mothers PowerPlastic, jeweler’s rouge, Meguiars, Novus plastic polish (favored by Martha Stewart), recipes for homemade polishes. I simply couldn’t talk myself into buying a lot of stuff I might not ever use again.
All these solutions had one thing in common–they are all mild abrasives. And so are melamine sponge erasers.
I had a box of store brand erasers on my shelf so I gave it a try.
The results were fantastic. Not only does very light rubbing remove all the oxidation in a few seconds, it also removes tarnish from the metal. The spoon I tested looked nearly as good as new. I was impressed enough to keep on going and polish a dozen more.
Really fast. Easy. Non toxic. My spoons are looking pretty good again. I think I might buff each handle with a little canola oil just to add a finishing shine.
How I ruined–and revived– my Bakelite flatware handles, part 2
Posted: January 12, 2014 Filed under: Home and Garden | Tags: 409 Cleaner, Bakelite flatware, Bar Keeper's Friend, Blue Magic, Catalin flatware, cleaning Bakelite, cleaning Catalin 1 CommentI’m still working on the best way to restore my Bakelite flatware. Here are four more cleaning solutions.
409 cleaning solution is mentioned frequently in connection with Bakelite, primarily as a way to “test” if it’s the real deal. What the heck, I decided to see if it would work. Yep, there’s more!
How I ruined–and revived– my Bakelite* flatware handles, part 1
Posted: January 10, 2014 Filed under: Home and Garden | Tags: Bakelite flatware, Catalin flatware, cleaning Bakelite, cleaning Catalin, Simichrome polish 3 CommentsIt only took a split second to ruin all of my Bakelite* handled spoons. In a moment of utter stupidity I dropped them in a sink full of hot, soapy water. And THIS is what happened. WAH!
They’re now almost entirely oxidized. Fortunately for you, my slip of sanity will work for your benefit. Because now I have to restore them. And I’m going to try most of the suggested remedies I’ve found on the web to see what really works. I’ll even try some solutions that I’ve never seen mentioned anywhere but work pretty well.
The most popular solution on the web seems to be
luray
janeray
dish sisters vintage home and housewares 