My New Eclectic Plate Arrangement

I just finished up my new wall plate arrangement, and couldn’t wait to show you how it turned out. Maybe you have been following along on Facebook and seen me gathering and collecting my plates. Or maybe you saw my big post the other day with 39 ways to decorate with plates? As you could tell, I had fun collecting ideas for you and me!

I already had most of these plates, and had used some of them here and there in various rooms, but had never used them together in one place.  It’s amazing how when you decide to pull together a new color scheme you can find things in your home that work together. I have been wanting to incorporate some fresh new colors into our living room, and I wanted to start with a simple eclectic plate arrangement.

How I Created My Eclectic Plate Arrangement

Choose a color scheme:  If you want to create a plate arrangement like mine, start with your color scheme. Maybe you already have a vintage plate collection to use, but for me I just started my collection off of newer plates and ones I had in my stash. I decided on white, aqua blue, cobalt blue, and soft green.

Have fun choosing the colors that you want for your plate display, and make it personal to your taste.

Choose a good variety: If achieving an eclectic look like I did, just be sure to mix up all your shapes, patterns and colors that together make a cohesive piece of art on your wall.  Nothing too matching, but complimentary to each other.

I stayed within a simple 3-4 color scheme so my plate arrangement didn’t get too crazy, and I tried to choose the same values of colors.  Nothing too bright as to stick out like a sore thumb.

Choose enough: I had more plates than I ended up using.  I was happy to have enough plates to play around with, because as you see below I ended up editing and cutting down the amount of plates I used.

Trace plate shapes onto paper: Next I turned the plates over and traced them onto paper, and cut them out. I labeled each paper plate with a simple description so I could get an idea of how I wanted to display them.

Can you see I got help with my labeling?  My little guys got in on the act, and wanted to help me.  They traced and labeled the paper plates for me!  I couldn’t resist. Don’t you love the kid writing below?

Arrange paper plates: I put the paper plates up on the wall in a pattern I thought I liked, and it did change, but it was a good starting point.  I will tell you, flat paper plates do look different then the dimensional plate on the wall, but I was glad I did this step anyway.  As I hung a plate I removed the paper plate.

Plan for changes: I thought I wanted my plate arrangement to come around the corner, as you can see in this photo below.  That was the plan until I started doing it.

As soon as I hung one or two plates up around the corner I hated it and was ready to take the whole thing down. I went and ate dinner, and came back.  I decided to just do the one end wall to start and see how it went, and immediately liked it better.

I then work and reworked the wall for about an hour or two. One thing I knew for sure, I wanted my plates in an angled pattern kind of “falling” down the wall. I also wanted some plates overlapping, some close together and others with spaces between. Again I was going for eclectic and nothing too perfect or lined up. For those of you who like things really symmetrical and lined up this plate arrangement would make you crazy!

I kept hanging plates, and then stepping back to see how it looked. I moved colors and shapes around.  Here was part of the process…

The darker green pieces ended up being taken out.  I loved them, but they were throwing everything off. The color was too dark. I will use them somewhere else in my house. I ended up weeding out other plates until I had just the right amount.

This plate arrangement was just like creating an art piece on the wall.  It was so fun!

And voila!  The final wall plate arrangement below.

I am in love with it!

Every time I walk in the living room I smile.  The fresh color scheme and interesting plate arrangement are pleasing to the eye and fill up this corner with interest.  I added some plants and will be tweaking and decorating some more in this corner along the way.

So how about you? Are you ready to go create your own plate wall?   I encourage you to have fun and play around till you get the perfect plate arrangement for you.

If you like this post, you might also like
How To Display Collections
39 Ways To Decorate With Plates

I am linking up to Jennifer Rizzo

Related posts: