Plate Proverbs

Everybody who’s ever watched Play School knows that it’s important to have a theme, and plates and kitchens go together like, well, plates and kitchens. I’ve seen some amazing plate wall arrangements, but I wanted mine to make a more literal statement. They glare down from their lofty perch, warning of the dire consequences to come if you eat that third piece of sticky toffee pudding with cream on top.

                                                                                      

I tried writing on them with a porcelain marker, but it didn’t ‘pop’ enough, so I went to Plan B (sadly, Plan B became a recurring theme of this project). If I had the patience of Job and a spare decade or two, I would have cut the letters out individually, but since I have neither I hacked them into strips and glued the whole thing on with Mod Podge.

Using the tutorial for hanging with paperclips from In My Own Style, I tried roughing the gluing-spot up with sandpaper as advised, but they resolutely refused to oblige, perhaps because they were imported from the tip shop rather than from China. I went ahead and smothered them with hot glue anyway, and hung them on the wall. Whether it was the type of glue or the type of plates I don’t know, but they lasted even less long than Francis Michael Forde did in office – one night, in fact, and they went down fighting.

All I can say is that my first reaction was not “Oh, bliss, what a terribly exciting opportunity to learn how to replace a tile”.

But now that they had smashed up my kitchen, I was even more determined to have something to show for it, so I found a different tutorial from Attempting to Be Domestic for hanging plates, with wire this time. I tried it with a clothes hanger just because they’re cheap, but as I am neither the Incredible Hulk nor a rampant steroid abuser, it didn’t work. It was vastly more successful with 18-gauge wire, but I must have been doing something backwards, because for the plates to hang properly my frames had to be upside down. I blame it on being left-handed.

And yes, one of the plates is hanging from a panda bear suction cap, since that was all I had. Don’t judge me.