Wall of Plates

Our living room and dining rooms are one big room with high ceilings. Ben is not a fan of putting big pictures of us up and not having a ton of money to spend on a big art piece, I came up with some wall art with plates. I like the collection of random plates that people have hanging, in all different colors, shapes and sizes. But lets face it I am to ocd for that. So I did a Google search of plate art. I saw a restaurant that had white plates in a nice pattern with some black artwork on the front. Thus my idea was born, so off to my favorite place the dollar store.

I found plan white square plates for a dollar a piece.

I did run them through the dishwasher just to get all the dirt and stickers off of them. I am lucky to have both the Slice and Cricut scrapbook machines, so off to my next favorite store Michael's to see what card I could find. I looked at both machines and settled on the Slice card called Bon Appetit! I also bought some black vinyl for the Cricut, but it can be used for what ever you need.

Next I made a template of what objects and sayings I wanted on the plates, I did keep some of the blank.

Now it was cutting time, I love my slice. I can only cut one item at a time (hence the reason I have the Cricut) but it is so easy to use. I used the adhesive that comes with the machine and the glass cutting board. I picked the largest size 4" for the objects and sayings. Then I smoothed the black vinyl on the cutting board and away the machine went.

The vinyl I bought had a sticky back, this made applying it to the plates easy. I first decided where I wanted the objects or sayings on the plates. Then I peeled the paper off the back and pressed the vinyl firmly onto the plates. I used a popsicle stick to help smooth it out and get any air bubbles out.

Here is a sample of some of the plates up close.

My next big adventure was finding a way to hang the plates flat on the wall so you could not see the hanger. I again turned to Google. I found a company called All plate hangers ( http://www.allplatehangers.com ). It was pretty cheap and fast. I did not take any pictures of these, sorry. They are really easy to put on the plates, you just take the hanger and wet the back, let it get tacky and smooth it on to the plate. I let them try for about 24 to 48 hours, as I was nervous that we would hear a big crash in the middle of the night and my plates would be on the floor. They work great and you can not see them, they also come off if you soak them in hot water.

Next I put the plates on the floor in the pattern I liked.

I also made templates out of paper to hang on the wall to make sure the spacing and style was what I wanted. I left the paper plates up for about a day or so to get used to them.

Here is what the final project looks like, well with paper plates.

So the paper plate pattern is not so perfect but it did help me to hang the rest of the plates.

 This was taken before we got our kitchen table.

After we got the bigger table and a couple months go by, I realized that the plates were off a little bit. My friend Jill (the real interior decorator) and I decided that I needed to add another column of plates.

I am happy with the way it turned out, it is the first thing people see when they walk through our front door.