Plate Wall!

For those of you who don't follow me on Pinterest, or don't hear me incessantly talk about searching for vintage plates, you might not know I've been working on creating a plate wall. Here's my Pinterest board for reference in case you have zero clue what I'm even talking about: http://pinterest.com/carolyn30/plate-wall/. As you can see, I've pinned a bunch of different types of plates (some quirky (Dr Who!!) and some very vintage) as well as ideas for placement and flow of all the plates.

There's a few reasons I love the idea of a plate wall. One, my style is very...vintage/cottage chic/earthy/bright. I feel that's a fairly accurate way to describe it. I have lots of earthy greens, off whites, dark browns, and purples throughout my apartment as well as plenty of lights that cast a soft brightness, nothing stark, but definitely not dark. A lot of my apartment really seems to be defined around my Vinyl Decal Canvas Wall Art which is definitely one of my favorite things I've made (and my most popular according to Pinterest repins). So a plate wall seemed like a great alternative decoration to just a bunch of paintings and pictures. Two, sometimes it's a fun thing to have something to collect over the years that isn't super tacky. A plate wall is something that can always grow and change over the years. You can get plates from various places you travel (which I did and will do), you can get plates with special meaning (just wait until you see what's on mine), and you can even create plates on your own (which I'm going to do very soon, so that will be a different post!).

It took me forever to turn this idea into a reality. Trying to find that first plate, that anchor plate, to start matching other plates too was proving to be very difficult. The flea market was always a bust, and same with thrift shops/Goodwill. And I wanted to at least slightly keep costs down, which has slowly become less of a priority as I find perfect plates. I haven't had time to hit up any estate sales, yard sales, and other places to track down good plates either. I wasn't too worried about it because, like I said, I knew this was going to be a lifelong project.

I have this fantastic spot in my apartment for the plate wall too.

See how there's that wall next to the door and the angled one behind my TV? Absolutely perfect for flowing up the wall and then around the corner into a curve. Right now I just have it up that side wall, but as I collect a few more plates, it'll grow over!

When I went to New York, my friend Laura and I went to Fishs Eddy, on the recommendation of my aunt and uncle, which is where we found my first two plates.

I finally had that one plate to grow around (the green one, duh), which definitely made the process easier because I could look for plates that coordinated well with it.

And then when I went with my friends Katie and Amy up to northern New York, we hit up an antique store and an awesome barn sale, and I found three more plates! (That little white one was only 25 cents!)

And then my mom found me a great North Carolina plate at some flea market (it is so much better than some of the cluttered tacky ones out there)

But the biggest win for my plate wall? My mom stalked eBay and found me this beauty:

That's right. Vintage 1946 NC State COLLEGE (that's how you know it's really vintage and not a fake) plate. It has the Belltower with Holladay Hall behind it, the first dorm, Watauga Hall, the Capital, the seal, oh it is SO PRETTY. These suckers are incredibly hard to come by, so big props to my mom for getting it for me.

So now that I had seven plates, I felt I had a good enough start to go ahead and hang them, and then grow from there. Thanks to the wonders of Pinterest, I learned about these babies: Invisible Disc Hangers. They come in all sorts of sizes, so I bought a bunch (you should really probably go with 4" but I got the 3" and after testing and letting a couple hang for a few days, I feel confident that they're in good shape).

I then used parchment paper to mark on the paper where the plates would hang and then put that paper against the wall and marked the spots for nails on the wall. Easy peasy!

I'm also planning to write on the back of each plate where I got it, when I got it, and any other information relating to those plates. I just need to find a porcelain pen, but for now I have a growing list of information for when I do find one. I think it'll be one of those fun things to tell people the stories of the plates when I'm 80 (if I can still remember everything). I can't wait to watch this grow over the years!

Spring (and Summer?) Wreath

I took my winter wreath down about a month or so ago because the form was starting to sag way too much, plus, considering how warm it's been here lately, it just seemed wrong having it up even though I hadn't made one for the spring yet. So my wreath hanger just kind of stayed lonely on my door for awhile...until today!

I pinned this wreath on Pinterest awhile ago because I just loved the vintagey vibe to it, and every time I looked at it on my board, it just made me happy. I finally got around to buying my supplies, and with a three day weekend, I knew I had the couple hours to devote to making it. Since it's already well into spring, this may end up being my wreath for both spring and summer. We'll see if I decide to be super productive in a few months because my other wreath idea will be very time consuming.

I got it in my head awhile ago, that I definitely wanted to keep with the stripe fabric like my inspiration wreath, but there was just something in my head screaming "Seersucker!!" I was a bit worried that I would have this idea and not be able to find the fabric I really wanted. I saw it online at Jo-Ann's, but I wasn't sure if I'd be able to find it in the actual store. Luckily, I walked in, and found my way straight to it! I picked up a yard of the lime green seersucker, which ended up being more than plenty of fabric (it's about 42" wide, so a yard was plenty). I then went over to the felt fabric sheets and choose some colors for my flowers. It was a little difficult because I didn't want something too bright or too dark, or too not coordinating. I decided to get a dark brown for the leaves, a tan for one of the flowers, and then use some of my leftover white felt for two of the other flowers. Unfortunately, they didn't have the right size straw wreath form, so I found my 18" wreath at Michaels. Overall, the project probably cost me about $10 and took about 2 hours (but part of that might have been my constant distraction of watching Friday Night Lights).

You can do whatever size wreath you want, I just like mine to be a bit bigger for my door, and 18" turned out to be the perfect size.

For the felt sheets, you'll need 1 for the color of your leaves, two for one flower, and four for the other two flowers (or 2 per flower if you do three different colors). You'll also need pins for securing everything to the wreath.

You'll want to cut your fabric into three inch wide strips. I wouldn't cut all of the fabric at first, just cut about 6 or 7 strips and then after putting some on your wreath, cut more as needed. This way, you'll have uncut extra fabric for some other project you may want to use it for. 

Using the pins, pin the end of the fabric on the back of the wreath, at a slight angle, and then start wrapping around the wreath! Just remember to pin each end as you go, overlap it, and pull the fabric tight so it fits snugly to the form. 

Once that's completed, it's time for the felt flowers! You can either freehand everything if you're a master with scissors, or use templates. For my leaves, I decided to do freehand since they're pretty straight forward. I was able to get all six leaves from one felt sheet. If you want more leaves, you'll probably need an extra sheet.

I decided to make myself a template for the flowers because otherwise my perfectionist self would have had to run out for a lot more felt. (This was about my third attempt to get a template I liked, so it's a good thing I decided to do that!) You'll want two big petals, two medium, and two small per flower.

Then you'll fold each petal in half, and then in half again, and pin to the wreath! 

I pinned the two big petals next to each other, and then the medium ones on the other side, and the small ones in the middle. For the two white flowers, since they were on the edge, I made sure the big petals were on the outside edges of the flower cluster. And then I fluffed them so they looked nice and pretty! You can do the flowers with more or less petals or other sizes, it's really all your preference, this is just how I chose to do mine. Then I pinned two leaves under each flower and the wreath was completed!

It definitely brightens up my door!