Silver. In my opinion, there’s no place in your house that you can’t use it. I am officially the “silver garbage collector” among my friends. When we go to a garage sale, they know that I will pick up that black piece of silver and take it home. I will rescue it from its descent into tarnish hell and use it. It will be on my next buffet setup and it will be on the patio table.

If you’ve got a surface wide enough to hold a tray, you can corral your vanity items on it. I wanted to make it easier to quickly clean my vanity countertop since it’s white Corian and it really should be wiped down every day. I grabbed one of my silver trays — you can see that it’s just as beautiful without being perfectly polished — and put all the little items on it that I had to move around when I cleaned. All I do now is move it from one side to the other and if I use my hairdryer on it every couple of days, it’s dusted, too.

It is my goal in life to never buy something when I can reuse or remix something I already have. One day, I wanted to take off my rings while I cleaned, so I went to the bar closet and found the crystal shot glass. It’s perfect, and can be an interesting conversation-starter when people want to know why I have a shot glass in the bathroom. 🙂

I’ve been looking for someone who shares my love of silver and ran across Silver Magpies. Spend some time with her posts; she’s got wonderful ideas about using silver every day.

Image via silvermagpies.com

And get out your own silver and use some of it for Thanksgiving. If you start now, you’ll easily get it polished before the turkey arrives, and then you won’t have to polish it again for at least six months!

P.S. That’s a real orchid that we took home from a benefit dinner we went to. It’s lasted three weeks, but it’s starting to fade. I’m tempted to buy another one at the grocery store because it makes me feel special every time I walk into the room.