Thursday, June 27, 2013

A Small Before and After

Last night I did a quick makeover.
I've had this little bent baby spoon in my nursery forever. I don't even remember purchasing it! It's not an expensive one. It's made of cast metal, and not particularly well done either. If it were on it's own that wouldn't be a problem, but  I have it sitting next to a delicate sterling porringer and cup from Peter Aquisto. The craftsmanship of the sterling pieces just highlighted the chunkiness of the spoon. It's always bothered me that it
 I used a small set of metal files to reshape the spoon. The bowl of the spoon is quite shallow, and I didn't have any tools to deepen it.  However, I was able to reshape the outside of the bowl, so that the edges are thinner, giving the illusion of a deeper bowl. The biggest difference came from getting rid of the excess metal on the handle. The files left some scratches and rough surfaces, which I scrubbed off with steel wool.
Last of all, I buffed the spoon with a silver-polishing cloth, which brought up a bit more shine than the photo shows. The cheap metal is still a slightly different tone than the silver pieces, but at least it won't look as out of place. I have a few more little updates in mind for the nursery, so I'll take prettier photos once I've made a bit more progress!

7 comments:

  1. Wow, Eliza! With a bit of whimsy you got a piece completely renovated. Nice job!

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  2. Hello Eliza,
    That is a wonderful transformation. Excellent work!
    Big hug,
    Giac

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  3. you turned trash into treasure! well done!

    Hugs
    Marisa

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  4. What an effort for something so tiny. But it paid off! :-)

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  5. Hi Eliza! It is All of those teeny tiny details that end up making the biggest and most profound difference to final picture! Well done the spoon is really 'dishing it up' now!

    elizabeth

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  6. What a great idea! I never thought to try improvements to metal objects, but now I will! Thanks for the tip, Eliza!

    John

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