How to live a lavish lifestyle during a recession: polish what you have!
This bowl in the picture is dark dark dark. Note the right side with the tarnish. The left side is shiny copper.
This copper bowl was handed down from Godmother Mista (but could have come from any garage sale) that I just polished in 10 minutes with the AMAZING Copperbrill from Amazon or William Sonoma. This bowl had not been polished in years, and the tarnish was serious. But I knew it could come back to shiny because tomato acid (I keep the vegetables in it) would remove spots of tarnish. When I polish the other side, I will have a gorgeous copper bowl that retails for over a hundred dollars. Hurray!
How to polish using the Copperbrill:
Run the copper bowl or pan under hot soapy water.
With a damp sponge (use the one that comes with the Copperbrill), rub a scoop of the Copperbrill onto the copper.
Rub in circles and watch the copper turn a lighter shade of copper. If it's like this bowl, it will require more rubbing and possibly a few runs of this process.
Rinse the Copperbrill off under hot water, and with a clean spunge wipe off the Copperbrill. Dry an polish with a clean cloth.
Voila!
You can buy Copperbrill from Amazon.
Here are more copper bowls at Williams Sonoma.