Upcycling Vintage China & Candlesticks

I've been considering projects (other than sewn items) that will compliment my product line, something kitchen-y or bathroom-y and thought why not try upcycling my stack of beautiful, mismatched china plates into dessert and cake plates?

So I set about trying to find the spindles/hardware that I would need for this project.

Hmfp!  I cannot find any in the United States!  The few I did find are too pricey and must be shipped from the UK.  Plan B...research alternatives to metal spindles/fittings.  Looking online I found quite a few people are using candle sticks and bud vases.  Yay, I can do this!

So I grabbed some of my plates, saucers and shallow bowls from my collection:

...Then made a trip to Renniger's Flea Market:

...Where I scooped up a small collection of glass and crystal candlesticks, bottles, oil lamp shades and candle holders.  Gotta love the flea!  Most pieces were $.50 or $1.00 and many are antique milkglass:

...Sent Paul to the hardware store pick up some apoxy:

And scrubbed the china, glass and crystal clean (note to self: be more disserning at the flea; a couple of the pieces I bought will not come clean, even with bleach and vinegar!).  Then I measured and marked the center of each plate, saucer and bowl, applied the sealant to the glass and crystal bases and pressed them against the plates.  Super, duper easy!  Here's a peek at a few of them:

(This hand painted plate looks like my 1950's Wilendur tablecloth!)

They will work well for serving cakes, cookies, cupcakes, petit fours - all sorts of desserts.  And I think the smaller ones will look lovely on a bathroom counter holding pretty soaps or on a dresser for small bits of jewelry.  Versitile and beautiful!

I'm delighted with the results and am planning on taking them to my craft fairs in October.  To help my customers see the potential of the cake plates I needed to come up with something to display on them that won't melt in the Florida heat and I found a felt cake!

It's a life-sized chocolate cake handcrafted by Debi at Debra822 Custom Crochet Creations.  It's so yummy looking I think my customers will be tempted to swipe a bit with their fingertips for a taste!

And for my double decker dessert stand I found these lovely petit fours - get this! - made out of soap!

Don't they look beautiful on my plate?!  There are so life like I'll definitely keep an eye out to make sure no one at my shows tries to eat one!  Alexandra, the owner of Clean Confections made them. 

I'm hoping my plates sell well - wish me luck!

In the meantime, please remember to comment on any or all of my September blog entries for a chance to win my blog giveaway!  Drawing is September 30th.