I love this idea because it reuses items and it keeps more garbage out of the landfills. Have a few extra garage sale or thrift store plates around to use for crafts and gifts, check out all these adorable ideas!
What can you do with old plates?
If you make cake, cookies, or treats for friends or neighbors or a school activity you don’t always want to put it on one of your dinner plates because sometimes you don’t get it back, and then your dinner set is short a plate. You can use paper plates for cookies or treats that are cut up but paper plates don’t work well for a cake.
The next time you go to the thrift store grab a few cheap random plates. or keep your eyes peeled for cheap plates when you go to garage sales. Then when you send a plate with a cake or dessert with someone and you don’t get the plate back it’s no big deal and it looks a lot nicer than a paper plate. If you don’t want it back at all just tell them to pay it forward.
Use decorative plates under your plants, if you put too much water in and the little saucer overflows. You have a plate to collect the extra water and it adds some color.
Use a plate to make a pedestal serving dish. Find a candle holder at the thrift store as well as a plate. Paint the candle holders if you need to and use glue to attach the plate. The result is this gorgeous pedestal plate. You can read the DIY directions Here. You could stack more candle holders and plates to make it 2 tiered or 3 tiered.
So fun for kids!
Let your child our children pick out a plate from a thrift store or garage sale. It can be their special plate. Use it for special occasions like birthdays or treating them when they did something good or got a great report card. Make it special, just for them and no one else can use it.
Check out this adorable Antique Plate Hanger from Classical Homemaking. Love the idea of using an old plate for something functional.
Love this DIY!
My nephew did this project with plates and I think it’s just gorgeous. They found a serving tray with handles and a fancy plate at the thrift store. Painted it, then broke the plate and glued the pieces on like a mosaic. Then used white grout to fill in the spaces. It was a gift for us and I just love it, I use it as a decoration. I think his favorite part was getting to break the dishes.
Use little plates, saucers and cups for jewelry storage and organization. Pictures by Satori Design for Living.
Buy a gorgeous bar of colorful natural soap and put it on a little plate or saucer. How pretty would this be in your bathroom. This is why you want to have a few extra garage sale or thrift store plates around.
Love love love how they used these plates in a backyard herb garden by Finding Home Farms. You could use plates in a regular garden or front porch planters, so many possibilities!!!
How many more ideas can you think of for old plates? Wall decorations, random colors, and sizes in a grouping. Picture frames, find plates with fancy edges, and cut out photos to fit inside the plate. Use glue to attach the pictures, black and whites would look really neat with antique looking saucers or plates. Bury plates in the ground halfway sticking out to make a border for a flower bed.
The ideas keep popping into my head and it’s so satisfying that old plates would get new life as something else instead of being thrown away!!
Lots more DIY’s and upcycle ideas:
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Be careful, a lot of old plates have unsafe lead.
That is a good point!!