Plates, Plates, and More Plates

This post contains a things that some of you might not want to read.  It's probably going to provoke death threats and suggestions that I have an exorcism, as surely the devil is making me do what I do.

The threats will be a kin to what happens when someone paints a vintage piece of furniture and the crowd goes wild, and not in a good way either.

They don't like the message or the messenger at that point.

I told you how I accidentally started collecting clothespins.  I also accidentally started collecting china, plates, cups, saucers, platters and bowls.

What the two collections of plates and clothespins have in common is that I never had any intention of using clothes pins to hang clothes up with, and I really didn't have any intention of eating off of any of these plates.

However, most of them have in fact been eaten from.  We used my 300, plus some from my friend Dii (hi Dii!) to feed guests at my daughters wedding.

The mismatched plates looked pretty stacked on an old buggy seat and of course were a conversation starter for the people who get stuff like that, and sideways looks from the folks who didn't.

I'll come home with any color plate if the price is right, whatever I find.  I have noticed people most often get rid of pinks and blues.

What do I do with all these plates when someone isn't getting married?

This is where some of you might want to cover your eyes and not read any further.....

I smash them.

No I don't have a room in my house where I go if I'm mad to fling plates against the wall.  I just quietly place a towel over one and politely smack it with a hammer till it shatters into a hundred pieces.

Then I cackle with glee.

And I make mosaics out of them.

There are approximately 300 plates and I've never counted the other pieces like saucers or cups.

There is a deep shelf behind closet doors in the garage that has been taken over by different patterns and sizes.  Well, really I've taken over the whole closet not just a shelf.

I also have boxes of stained glass shards.  #1 daughter is a stained glass artist and brought home pieces for me from the place she used to work.  I use pieces of china, mirror and stained glass when I make stuff.

Some plates are in complete sets that someone just wanted to give away.  Some are just a few random plates I picked up for a nickle - probably because the rest were tossed out when they broke.

Some are vintage, some are collectible.

Many of the really old ones have a lot of crazing.  I like that look.

Some I have displayed in my house and some we actually put food on.

When I host a holiday for my inlaws - which means approximately 50 people including kids - I just go to the garage and get a stack of plates in colors that go with the holiday or the season.

So what if one breaks, that just saves me one less whack when I decide I want to make something out of it.

For whatever reason, there are some I probably won't ever smash.

For this post I grabbed some samples from what I could reach on the garage shelf, and I moved pretty fast - it's cold in the garage right now.

I particularly like silver rimmed ones and even better if their design is also silver.

It was Amy at While Wearing Heels that caused this walk down plate lane.  She posted these blue plates, both of which patterns I have.

Do you need some more Amy?

And what else did I find when I was snooping around on the plate shelf?  There in a plastic bag from a garage sale was just what I needed more of.......

Clothespins.

*Thank you to those of you who spotted my typo, ahhh ha ha ha ha ha, and thanks for letting me know - so of course I changed it.  For those who didn't get to have a chuckle about it, I wrote I collected bowels instead of bowls.  Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha.  I don't collect bowels.  Ah ha ha ha ha ha........

**And because some of you asked to see, I have edited this to add two links to old posts that have some of the mosaics I've done...
 http://www.bliss-ranch.com/2012/01/cracked-hammered-and-smashed.html
http://www.bliss-ranch.com/2013/07/clever-hideaways-hometalk-board.html

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