Creativebug Guest post by Blair Stocker of Wisecraft
DIY Painted Plates
If decided not to host the big Thanksgiving dinner this year, you may change your mind after making these. A mismatched set secondhand plates get a completely new look with ceramic paint. No need mad artistic skills, just have fun. It’s a great project to do with friends, so grab your besties, put on a movie, and start painting!
Materials
- Ceramic plates from the thrift store (not melamine or plastic)
- Masking or painter’s tape
- Small brushes
- Water
- Something to pour paint onto and use as a palette
- Pebeo Porcelaine paint in your chosen colors (found at Blick Art Supply, Amazon, and most good craft stores)
- Paper Towels
- Access to an oven
- Something to protect your work surface
Step 1: Clean and dry the plates.
Cover your work surface and have a bit of water and paper towels handy to clean your brushes.
Step 2: Prep the Paint
Pour a bit of each color of Pebeo paint onto a palette (I used Fall-inspired colors- red, brown, 2 greens, and a gray). Leave room on your palette to mix colors if you’d like (they mix well!).
Step 3: Add Detail
Using your brush, just start filling in the areas you want to paint. I put a piece of masking tape diagonally across the center of one of the plates and only applied paint to one side of it. On another plate, I painted only inside a square I masked off (pictured above). Have fun with painting whatever areas you want (what about painting only inside big polka dot shapes?).
Step 4: Bake
Finish the plate by “curing” them in the oven, following the directions on the paint bottle. Once properly cured, these plates are completely food safe and able to be washed in the dishwasher.
I have other ideas for thrift store dishes (and all kinds of fund crafts) in my book, Wise Craft: Turning Thrift Store Finds, Fabric Scraps, and Natural Objects Into Stuff You Love.
For more ideas on painting on dishes, check out Creativebug’s Design On Ceramics with Molly Hatch.
Blair Stocker
http://www.wisecrafthandmade.com