D-I-Y Confetti Plates

Remember these fun plates from the Peace, Love, Cake shoot? Well, I made them! I wanted to share how I did it too, since it’s pretty simple. It actually all started with these Kate Spade plates we were lusting over. We got it in our heads that those were the perfect plates for the shoot, but were super bummed to find out they only came as a dessert plates……so we improvised!

If you’re familiar with our About Us then you’ll know that Ellen is waaaaaay better at d-i-y projects, so the fact that I made them is a true testament to how anyone can make them. If it involves spray paint and being able to color outside the lines then I’m in! Read below for the items you’ll need to get started on this d-i-y!

The materials: you’ll need metallic spray paint (gold!), sharp hole punch, scissors, xacto  knife, painter’s tape, plate(s), and a small disposable bowl.

Take a piece of painter’s tape several inches long, pull it tight, and then punch holes in it sporadically, or in your various design. This is where a nice sharp hole punch comes in handy. Mine was a little old, so often times it did not fully punch out the hole. It would leave the punched out circle hanging there, and thus the xacto is needed to finish the job and cut the circle out neatly. The cleaner your holes are punched out, the cleaner and more perfect the shape will appear on the plate.

Once you punch the holes out cleanly on your piece of tape, firmly press the strip down on your plate. I placed my tape in horizontal strips all along the plate to ensure it covered the rim, but if you have a thicker tape you could run it vertical and be fine (probably use less tape too!) The plate pictured below was the first plate I did so I experimented and painted sections at a time, but it’s of course more efficient to cover the whole plate all at once and spray and then remove.

Sometimes I left whole strips of tape without any holes punched out to make the design look more random and not too busy. I also intentionally tried to line some of my holes right on the rim of the plate so part would get cut off and not look so perfectly spaced.

The plate below was one of the ones I did further into the process, after I had mastered the technique and felt confident covering the whole plate at once. Remember, whatever you don’t cover on the plate will be gold after you spray it! Before you spray it’s also a good idea to go back and run your fingers over all of the holes and make sure they’re firmly pressed down. A couple of times, mine weren’t and the circles did not turn out perfectly. Luckily, either from the plate I was using or the paint, I was able to go back right after and chip the paint off the plate. Cleaning up the circle or completely removing it if I didn’t love it.

I got lucky and had some paper bowls lying around the house that fit perfectly in the middle of the plate. I taped the bowl down securely so that no paint would leak in while I sprayed and it worked great! As you can see in the pic below, I reused my bowl and tape several times!

Ta-da! The finished product. As I mentioned before, you can go back later and chip the paint off the plate. In order to prevent chipping later on you would probably want to seal the paint with spray on sealer or another technique. It was beneficial to us though to be able to chip off some of the dots we didn’t love for the shoot, but for anyone wanting to use these charger plates at  a dinner party, etc. it would be smart to seal them.

We have another great d-i-y to share from the Peace, Love, Cake shoot next week! Ellen’s glowing gold paper flowers! Stay tuned…..

Posted by Beau & Arrow Events on March 26, 2012

https://beauandarrowevents.wordpress.com/2012/03/26/d-i-y-confetti-plates/