spring cleaning

Silver, while a gorgeous addition to the table, has a reputation for being finicky to maintain. Luckily there's an easy solution to tackling tarnish — no trip to the store to procure supplies needed. All you'll need is a large pot, tinfoil, baking soda, water, a pair of silicone-tipped tongs and a soft dishcloth — really, that's it.

The Low-Fuss Procedure

1. Line the pot with tinfoil. Add a quart of water and 2 tablespoons baking soda to the pot, and bring the solution to a boil.
2. Working with a few pieces at a time (to minimize scratching) gently lower the tarnished silver into the baking soda solution, let sit for 10-30 seconds, or until the tarnish dissolves. Remove the silver with the tongs; set aside.
3. Once all of the silver is tarnish-free, rinse each piece with soapy water, and dry with a soft dishcloth.

Keep reading for a few tips and tricks.

Although the idea of Spring-cleaning seems great — after all, who wouldn't want a fresh start? — the implementation takes a lot of hard work. Luckily, when I did a search on Reddit, I found plenty of cleaning hacks that will help make the task easier and more effective:

• Clean your shower while you're showering. User insertcitationhere says you can kill two birds with one stone when you "clean your shower while you take a shower . . . likewise, dry out your showers with one of those squeegie things after every bath (you will never get soapscum or mildew, making monthly cleaning easy)."
• Target one room at a time. insertcitationhere recommends to "clean one room a week instead of your whole house once a month. For example, I clean once a week every Sunday night."
• Listen to music. Turkishgamer says, "listening to music while cleaning helps."
• Let hunger motivate you. "Wash just after you finish cooking, because you are really hungry for the food you just cooked, [so] you blast through those pots and pans like a madman," says theresaviking.
• Store the sheet set in a pillowcase. One redditor says, "After putting a sheet set through the laundry, store the sheets (and one pillowcase) inside the other pillowcase. You'll never search for the matching sheet/pillowcase again."

Read on for more.

It's hard to be taken seriously at work when you have fur all over your outfit. Don't let your four-legged friend bring your professionalism down, and keep you and your home fur-free. To celebrate National Pet Day, let's all strive to keep fur-hassle at a minimum. Here are some tips:

• Know when to bathe. Depending on your pet, it may be good to bath them at least once a month to help get rid of loose hair. For cats, bathing might stress them out, which can then in turn cause more shedding, so it's up to you to use your discretion on the appropriate number of times to bathe them.
• Brush daily. Brush daily or at least three to four times a week to help your pet rid itself of loose hair before it starts falling all over your home and your clothes.
• Use FURminator. There is a really great deshedding tool called the FURminator ($20, originally $63), which claims to reduce shedding up to 90 percent for a month to six weeks. The sharp stainless steel edges work to remove the loose undercoat without damaging the topcoat. I've actually started using it with my cat, and it seems to be working. It's quite possibly the best method, in my opinion, to reduce shedding.
• Keep lint rollers around. I have a lint roller in my home, office, and stash a mini roller ($4 for a set of two) in my bag, so I can remove fur wherever I am and keep myself fur-free.

Read on for more.

If you haven't cleaned your microwave in a while, then you might notice a buildup of gunk. And if it's been sitting in there for a while, then the bits of food may have hardened to the point of making it almost impossible to remove. Thankfully, steam-cleaning the inside of the appliance with a vinegar-water solution will remedy the mess without much effort. Here's what you need to do.

First, gather your materials:

• Microwave-safe bowl
• Toothpick or stir stick
• Vinegar
• Water
• Sponge

Read on for what you should do next.

Imagine this scenario: you have just sat down to a beautiful plate of french toast and begin to pour sticky maple syrup over the stack, when out plops a funky black lump from the bottle. This picture-perfect moment is ruined, and you can't help but leap back from the table from shock and disgust. What the heck could be growing in the bottle?

This not-so-pleasant predicament actually happened to me, so I'm sharing my learnings with you. Maple syrup, as it turns out, should always be refrigerated upon opening, otherwise you could wind up with the situation I just described, with mold growing inside the bottle. Personally, I have never refrigerated any sugary syrups (agave, honey, brown rice syrup), so I can't believe I've lived this long not refrigerating maple syrup. While some claim you can scrape off the mold and boil the syrup to kill the remaining strands of bacteria, I prefer to live by the mantra "When in doubt, toss it out."

Can you relate to this experience? Did you know to refrigerate maple syrup?

When was the last time you synced your smartphone in order to backup your data, photos, music, and videos? Whether you have an iPhone, Android, or Windows phone, syncing and backing up your information and files will save you grief if by chance you lose your device, douse it in water, or drop it face down on the pavement, sending shards flying. Back up your phone's contents weekly, or more often if you take a lot of photos and video.

Keep up with all of our Spring cleaning tech tips here or at our 31 Days of Spring Cleaning Pinterest board!

It might be overwhelming to just look at your clutter, but there are some very simple steps you can take to declutter your place in no time. All you need to do is just start. We talked to Peter Walsh, a celebrity organization expert, who gave two very simple tips to start tackling your mess:

• The trash bag technique: "The very first thing you should do if you're feeling overwhelmed in your space is to set aside 10 minutes a day." Walsh says. Give everyone in your household two trash bags and have them fill them up during that 10-minute window every day. Fill one up with things to trash and the other up with things to donate or sell. If you live with someone else and the two of you use this simple technique for one week, you'll end up with 14 bags of trash and 14 bags of stuff going to donation at the end of the week. "That's a really simple technique — 10 minutes a day that will make a massive change," he says.
• Back-to-front clothes: Walsh says we all wear "20 percent of [our] clothes 80 percent of the time." The best way to check what you don't need is to use the back-to-front method. Turn the clothes that are hanging in your closet so that the hangers are facing back to front. For the next six months, every time you wear a piece of clothing, hang it back up the correct way. "At the end of six months, whatever is still hanging back to front, chances are you are never going to wear. Send it off to Goodwill."