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!