I love hitting the thrift stores. I’ll often pick up plain plates to use in my recipe photos on my cooking blog. However, using the same plates over and over again can get old, so repurposing them into holiday tableware seemed like an ideal solution. I pulled out a red plate a friend gave me last year, and found a couple of plain white coffee mugs at the second hand store. I paired those with some saucers I already had and came up with these festive designs.
The Martha Stewart decorative paint line has new stencils and an entirely cool line of multi-surface paints in a variety of finishes. On this tableware, I used the pearl finish paint, the glitters and the metallics along with a combination of holiday stencils. I started with the plain white coffee mugs I found at the thrift store. I chose a large snowflake stencil and cut it away from the stencil sheet. I used the stencil adhesive because I needed to use the snowflake on a curved surface. You spray the back of the stencil and let it dry. The back of the stencil should be tacky but not wet. Press it onto the surface. Secure the edges of the stencil with painter’s tape. This also gives you some padding so you don’t paint outside the stencil area. Use your stencil sponge or brush to dab on your paint. The new line of stencils includes this smaller set of self adhesive stencils. I think EVERY stencil in the world should be self adhesive! Just sayin’. These self adhesive stencils work perfectly on rounded surfaces, see the edge of the plate? I also used self adhesive stencils on the red plate, see those cute little gingerbread men? I had been using a Q-Tip dipped water to clean off any boo boos I made. So I removed all the cotton from the end and used it to add the copper dots between the silver and gold gingerbread men. I used a toothpick to add white pearl dots for their buttons. I also used a toothpick to add dots from the gingerbread hands to the copper dots, connecting them all like garland. The Merry Christmas phrase is also a self adhesive stencil. I love those! Because you’ll want to be able to wash and reuse these, allow the paint to cure for 21 days before washing. I’m partial to the pearl snowflakes in two shades of blue and green on the white tableware. Though the glittery color of the holly berries and the reindeer with Rudolph noses makes me smile. The red plate was my least favorite at first… but I kept playing with it, adding tiny dots and details until it made me smile too. I love the way they all came out and plan to make more to give as gifts this year! Hope you liked them too :)
I have no words for how beautiful and impressive these dishes are! Just a big WOW for me! I would be proud to put these on my table, too. And I NEVER buy a Christmas dish, plate, mug because they are just so expensive for one month/week/day out of the year. These are incredible. Great job!
Wow thanks Suzanne, what a great compliment!
wonderfully creative
Everything turned out wonderful! I totally agree…I wish every stencil was self adhesive!
Very, very cute!
These are just gorgeous – the snowflakes are amazing! Do the stencils also come in individual letters as opposed to just phrases like “Merry Christmas”? I’m thinking it would be fun to personalize a plate as a gift…something like “Mom’s Cookies,” or just a name on a mug. Thanks for the wonderful (and frugal) idea!
Yes, there are some individual letters. They are a different font though. There’s a link to my bird feeder in the post above, check that out, it uses the individual letter stencils :)
This is awesome! What fabulous gifts to make! :)
aww. your dishes turned out so cute.. I’m going to be on the lookout for white dishes now.. Thanks for sharing this!!
These are SUPER cute – LOVE!
These look extremely professional. Love the little deer mug!
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I love this idea to jazz up thrift store plates! So cute!
What a fabulous idea! These are so cute. I’d love it if you shared this at my party that I have going on – Christmas Craft Tutorial at Project Queen.
http://www.projectqueen.org
Mandy
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can they be washed in a dishwasher?
Yes! They are top rack dishwasher safe ;)
This is awesome! What fabulous gifts to make! :)