Painted Plates for Date Night

As I said yesterday with the inspiration board, I’m planning a s’mores date night with MJ for our ninth anniversary this week. When I thought of what I could make for our date (in addition to the delectable s’mores), I had a vision of a set of themed dishware. Hearts can sometimes be seen as juvenile or childishly cute but since hearts are kind of my thing ’round here, I was inspired to create a set of dishes covered in their lovey, dovey-ness. Plus, I thought MJ would look extra handsome eating and drinking from heart covered dishware. Haha!

To keep them from appearing childish, I chose a darker, bolder color scheme and used non-fluffy heart shapes.

Here’s how the dishes were created.

Supplies:

-plates, bowls, mugs, chargers
-paint (I used Martha Stewart’s line of paint that can be cured for permanence in the oven.)
-permanent markers
-brushes

For the mugs, I printed an ‘m’, ‘&’ and ‘a’, sized to fit the mugs. When I got them just right, I trimmed the excess paper and then rubbed the backside with the side of my pencil. With the paper in place on the mug, I traced the letters and the graphite transferred onto the mug in the shape of my letters.

From there I painted the letters, allowed it to dry and then cured both mugs in the oven as follows: (this is for Martha Stewart paint only)

Allow the paint to completely dry, at least an hour. Then place the item or items in a cool oven. I place my pieces on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Turn the oven to 350F and bake the wares for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, turn off the oven and allow the item or items to cool in the oven. This is the method because glass must be heated gradually.

When they are completely cooled, remove them from the oven and do not use for 72 hours. The paint will also cure after 21 days, without using the oven. Both methods produce top-shelf dishwasher safe cured pieces.

On the bowl, I used vinyl and cut out hearts.

Once I had them placed, I painted over all of it with red. Once the paint dried, I peeled off the vinyl and used silver paint to clear up the edges. When it was all dry, I cured them in the oven.

On the big plates, I used a permanent marker and covered it with hearts. I’ve read that cured permanent marker marks often don’t stay so I circumvented the issue by putting a layer of translucent pearl paint over them all as a protectant. I filled a few of them with paint and cured it in the oven.

The scalloped plates had unfortunate fruit in painted in the middle so I covered them first with a mix of white and pearl paint. On that base, I painted a heart and added paint dots to give it a interesting pattern. It too was cured in the oven.

For the plastic charger, I made a mini heart stamp cut from a foam sheet and stamped it. No need to cure this one since it is made of plastic.

They are ready for date night!