This summer, I had the opportunity to attend Convention in Salt Lake City and let me tell you, it was AMAZING! I took several hundred photos of inspiring creations. All of the sneak peeks, make and take projects and main stage demonstrations were incredible. One such demonstration, presented by Carrie Cudney from Stampin’ Up!, featured projects for the kitchen. She showed several clever ways to incorporate paper crafting in the kitchen – everything from customized recipe scrapbook albums and recipe boxes, to cupcake and smores kits! One project that caught my eye was her Decorative Plates. She purchased an inexpensive clear glass plate and made 12 circular embellishments that she put behind the plate – on for each month and holiday of the year! When I returned home from Convention, I picked up a pile of these plates and a wrought iron decorative plate rack and have never looked back! For Halloween, I used the Ghostly Greetings Double Sided Designer Series Papers to back the plate. For Thanksgiving/Fall, I featured the Season of Friendship stamp set and Autumn Vine Double Sided Designer Series papers from the Holiday Mini Catalog. Here is my creation for winter:
For this set of plates (I did make two, but photographing them in my kitchen is near impossible!), I chose Baja Breeze cardstock for the circle. I cut a snowflake from white chipboard using the Sizzix Big Shot and the Snowflake #2 Bigz Die. Using a two-way glue pen, I applied Dazzling Diamonds glitter to the entire snowflake, making it nice and sparkly. Then I found a two bowls to use as patterns – one to serve as the circle for the Baja Breeze background piece, and one a little smaller to create a mask for embossing the pattern and defining a circular area in the center of the plate. I traced and cut the Baja Breeze piece out of 8 ½” X 11” cardstock, and the smaller piece out of regular copy paper. I used the copy paper to cover the center of the Baja Breeze circle and stamped the berry image from the Kindred Spirits stamp set in versamark ink for an all over print. I embossed this in Silver detail embossing powder. Then I used the versamarker to create a rim on the outer edge of the Baja Breeze and an inner circle on the inside of the circle. I embossed these in Silver detail embossing powder as well
To finish things off, I centered and attached the sparkling snowflake using mini glue dots to secure. Then I added a clear rhinestone using another mini glue dot. With each of these sets of plates, I have always run into the same dilemma… how to attach to embellishment to the back of the plate without make the adhesive obvious. On the Halloween set, I tried Crystal Effects – it worked beautifully, but you could definitely see where it was applied once dry which took away from the overall design of the plate. For the Thankful Fall set, I used mini glue dots, placed evenly around the outer edge of the cardstock circles. These were also visible on the finished side, but I tried to make them look as much like a part of the design as possible. For this set, I was at a loss! These plates are intended for display only, so my options are more open versus someone wanting to serve food on the finished plates. Because they are for display purposes only, the adhesive only needs to be strong enough to hold the embellishment to the glass. Finally it occurred to me to try a mini glue dot on top of the rhinestone, hoping to camouflage the glue dot with the rhinestone. It worked wonderfully! I was very pleased with how it turned out! So, if all of my future plates feature rhinestones, you’ll know why!
Thanks so much for stopping by. Leave me a comment if you get a chance. I have been on a sparkly snowflake kick for the last few days... must be I could sense the storm we had overnight! Stay on the lookout for more of these sparkling beauties over the next few days as I have more to share. And don’t forget to check out my website – www.skidamarinkers.stampinup.net - to take advantage of the Retired Stamp Set Sale and Free Shipping offer!
Happy Stamping!
Wendy
