Easy Custom Plate DIY
I am no DIYer by any stretch of the imagination, but when I saw this come across my Pinterest feed, I couldn't help but check it out. If nothing else, I wanted to at least find out where I could buy it. Turns out it was a DIY. So I read it over and realized, "I could totally do this!"
And "do this" I did.
Inspired by Lauren Saylor over at A Fabulous Fete I decided to try my hand at this amazing DIY for my holiday tablescape. It turned out much better than I'd anticipated, and I grew so confident in my skills -- after a few attempts of course -- that I deviated from her template, and created my own custom plates featuring my favorite inspirational words: "grace" "hope" "faith" and "love".
To do this DIY, I only had to purchase TWO things -- the 7.75" Dessert Plates and the White Acrylic Paint Marker. I'd already had Liquid Chalk Marker to use on my whiteboard so I was happy that this DIY wasn't going to involve purchasing too many materials on my part.
I purposefully chose dessert plates, versus dinner plates, because I wanted these to sit at the top my tablescape setting & I didn't want to have to sacrifice my actual dinner plates to make that happen.
Now, to clarify -- to DO the DIY, I only had to purchase those items, BUT afterward, I did go ahead and have my husband pick up some polyurethane to seal the back. Do I plan on having people actually use these plates -- absolutely not! But I did still want to be safe & not run the risk of someone accidentally washing 'em off.
HOW TO DO IT:
prep your plate by simply wiping it down
tape your template text, face up, to the bottom of the plate
using the chalk pen, trace the template text so that it's on the face of the plate
remove the template text & place the plate face down
using the acrylic pen, trace the template you created with the chalk -- this is the trickiest part because you're tracing the text in reverse; but instead of overthinking it, just make like you're back in grade school tracing for art class
with either water or glass cleaner, clean off the chalk paint from the front of the plate; you should be able to see the acrylic paint
using the template text as your guide, tweak the appearance of the text as necessary
if you decide to use polyurethane, go ahead a spray the back of the plate to seal the text
That's it. We're done!
I told you it was easy!
I love a DIY that's practical, affordable, and easy -- which should be the recipe for really any DIY but that isn't always the case. This little project has elevated my tablescape in such a way that no storebought plate could've ever done. This'll work great as a substitute for name cards on a place setting, and even on other glassware.