How to Clean and Enjoy Sparkling Glassware
Springtime is the season when vintage glassware can be found aplenty! Farm auctions, church sales, estate sales and garage sales are great places to find these pretties on the cheap. {see “A Vintage Junker’s Guide: Where to Find the Good Stuff“} But they’re usually not found looking quite this pristine. Today I’ll show you how to clean up and enjoy vintage glassware.
I can get downright excited when I come across a tattered cardboard box at a sale that is overflowing with spiderweb and dead-bugged-filled glassware. {see “For the Love and Comfort of Church Sales”}. Whether it’s aqua blue ball jars, old glass medicine bottles or colored depression glass, I just want to bring it home and give it a good soak and scrub. The transformation is like a good trash to treasure story.
Before getting my special treatment (which I’ll tell you about later), the glassware is usually cloudy and tired looking. There are chunks in the bottom and it just looks like it’s already had a full, purpose-filled life!
I like to soak and clean these vintage goodies and have them handy for garden bouquets, storage, or some safe candlelight. Daylight or candlelight glimmering out of vintage glassware is beautiful!
To get the glassware clean and sparkly, fill the laundry tub up with hot water and a mixture of 1 cup ammonia and 1 cup granular dishwasher soap. Make sure the vessels are full of water and don’t pop up to the top. Let soak at least 1 hour. Then scrub outside with a nylon brush or scrubbie sponge.
If the glassware has a small neck and it’s hard to get the sediment out of the bottom, I use small, decorative rocks to dislodge the gunk. Aquarium rocks or vase filler rocks are the perfect small size:
I simply put some rocks in the neck of the bottle with some of the special cleaning formula and shake, shake shake so the rocks scrape the insides of the bottle. The rocks can be poured out and drained and dried on a terry cloth towel till you need them again.
Vintage glassware is a treat to use for function and beauty when it’s all clean and sparkly!
Colored vases, dishes or jars are beautiful sitting next to a window, with the sunshine streaming through! They don’t even need flowers; they’re like a flower garden themselves!
Be on the lookout for some dirty, tired glassware this spring when you’re out saleing! Now you’ll have the knowledge to make those vases, jars and dishes all clean and sparkly. If you’ve got a trove already, give them a little beauty treatment and enjoy them on your windowsill!
Pin and Save to Remember!
Sharing at these parties:
I am already a subscriber. Do I sign up again to get the vintage glass recipe? Thank you for sharing all your wonderful info
You’re welcome, Jeanne! You can just use the password in my weekly email, which you should have gotten today! If you don’t see it, check your spam folder. Email me on the contact page if you still have trouble. Your welcome; thanks for subscribing!
I adore your gorgeous colored glassware! Thanks for sharing at Vintage Charm!
Thanks, Cecilia! It is so pretty with the springtime sunshine streaming through it!
I have not been able to get the glass recipe. I have tried password and I did not received it from you.
I’m sending it to you, Carolyn. Happy cleaning!