Valentine's Day Plate


Back in November, I made a bowl with cartoon strips decoupaged onto the back. I used dishwasher-safe mod podge so the decorated bowl could still be washed. It worked pretty well. Decoupaged dishes are no longer relegated to being only decorative. So, I decided I needed to make a decoupaged Valentine's Day plate.


I found some cute decorative napkins at my local grocery store. Unfortunately, the design wasn't in the least bit circular (like my plate), so I had to cut it apart to get it to work on my plate. I grabbed my dollar store plate, the dishwasher-safe mod podge, a scissors, the napkins, and a foam brush. I later used a paper plate to keep the glass plate up off of the table while the glue dried. 

My first step was to remove the label on the plate and wash off any dirt or sticker residue. The dishwasher-safe mod podge recommends cleaning glass surfaces with rubbing alcohol--so I put some on a paper towel and wiped it clean before I started with my decoupaging.


I first cut the heart out of one of the napkins. I decided to leave a border of white around it figuring it would show any cutting imperfections a bit less that way. If I did this project over, I'd probably carefully cut the heart out so the white wasn't showing, but it still looks ok with the white edging.


I painted a thin layer of glue onto the plate and placed the heart in the center. I carefully smoothed the heart from the center out. Tissue paper and napkins will wrinkle when placed on the mod podge. They wrinkle a bit less if you use less glue (and they smooth out quite a bit as they dry). They are also less likely to tear if you go easy on the glue. However, if you use too little, it might not adhere.


After the heart was glued down. I cut apart the polka dot sections of the napkins into to 3 inch-ish sections and glued them around the edge. I made sure the edge of the plate was covered, even if that meant the napkin hung over the edge.


After I made it around the plate once, there were some areas where the shape of the polka dot design meant that the napkin didn't fill in the entire edge of the plate. I added more polka dots up to the edge of the center of the plate, just by layering more pieces of the napkin over the first ring of polka dots. I ended up using all of one napkin and a little bit of a second for this part of the project.


Once the ring around the edge was complete, I cut strips of white paper from the center of the napkin to fill in around the heart. Then I checked for any loose edges and made sure everything was glued down well. Be careful while the paper is all wet with glue. It's easy to tear the paper while trying to smooth things out. If you do tear anything, just carefully glue more paper over the tear. At this point, it kind of looked like wet toilet paper and wasn't very promising. But I knew it would smooth out as it dried.


The dishwasher-safe mod podge takes longer than regular mod podge to dry. The bottle recommends 3 hours between coats. It took at least 2 for the first application to dry to the touch. After it did, I noticed that some of the white paper had become translucent. I debated adding a sheet of white tissue paper to the back to make it more opaque, but I decided that I kind of liked the translucence. So I forged ahead. I trimmed all of the paper that was hanging over the edge of the plate with a scissors.


Then I applied a second coat of the dishwasher-safe mod podge to the back of the plate, smoothing the loose paper along the edge of the plate with my finger. This coat took a bit less time to dry and the paper got even a bit more translucent. 


It was dark by the time the second coat was dry, but you get the general idea. It was a fun project and I still have at least one more coat of mod podge to go before it is sealed. The bottle recommends 3 coats and then a 30-day cure before washing.

Valentine's Day Plate

On Monday, I managed to get in two more coats of mod podge--one before work and one after work. By Tuesday, everything was dry and ready to go. I can't wash it for a month, but I can set it out and maybe put some cookies on it on V-day.


The coolest part about the plate is that it's so transparent. It's hard to see when it's setting down on a table, so I took a photo of it in the sunlight. I'm just scratching the surface at the possibilities for mod podge on dinnerware. I can't wait for my next project.

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