Salad Plates

My favorite way to set a table is a really basic, solid color dinner plate with a fancy, colorful, patterned salad plate layered on top. If it's Thanksgiving or Christmas, I like to pull out the gold chargers and the table linens. It's sort of fool-proof and even fun to set the table with this method. It's just a matter of figuring out which salad plates will we use this time and what the flowers will look like.


So whenever I come across salad plates for a fun price, I have a hard time passing them up. It was pretty much impossible for me to not buy these tumbling blocks porcelain plates from CB2. $2.95 each! Won't they be perfect for outdoor dinner parties this summer? Eight are on their way to me (along with a couple of these (cute hostess gifts!) and a handful of these (love yellow!)).


How do you set your table? Do you have one china set or many? Growing up, we used my mom's beautiful wedding china for holiday meals and sometimes just for Sunday dinners. I always liked that my mom was willing to use her nice china often, even when we were young kids.
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18 comments:

  1. pve designJuly 3, 2012 at 6:06 AM

    I have used my white china nearly everyday. I love it.
    I do have white melamine plates and love those for outdoors. I love using linen, gingham....and ticking for napkins.
    I love finding plates at thrift shops but don;t stray from my white too often.
    pve

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  2. Viva CindyJuly 3, 2012 at 7:11 AM

    Love the plates! my mom also pulled out her china for holidays and sunday dinners. i remember complaining...do we have to use the china?? haha
    now i see how special it made our meals...for a lot of my moms traditions, it took until i was an adult to appreciate:)

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  3. Blonde One (Deb)July 3, 2012 at 8:56 AM

    I love china, I love all the plates. We used to have our good china for very special occasion and often when visitors arrived to impress them... Not often enough when my parents died I pull out all the beautiful things that had hardly been used as they were kept for best, I think best sucks and we enjoy different plates at different times when we feel like it. I love them all, so do the children and they help me choose the right one and help decorate the table with linen.

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  4. My Interior LifeJuly 3, 2012 at 8:57 AM

    Oooh, I love the graphic quality of these. Might have to copy you on this one (I'm sure you're used to that!). I'm a big mixer. My fine china is simple white with a gold band so I mix in a little colorful plate here and there.

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  5. LiannaJuly 3, 2012 at 9:19 AM

    I adore setting an nice table - I often bust out my grandmothers china just to brighten my day. I love getting lots of salad plates to mix and match too! So fun! Great find!

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  6. AnonymousJuly 3, 2012 at 10:16 AM

    My mom was never afraid to use the good china, and she still has nearly every piece of service for 12. Every time we washed it by hand together, she'd remind me that one day it would be mine. I hope that day takes a very, very long time to come. In the meantime, I love my white stoneware and will play with seasonal accent pieces and linens whenever I want a change.

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  7. Janna McCalleyJuly 3, 2012 at 10:34 AM

    Fun patterns! We used my mom's china every Sunday-even with 9 rambunctious kids! Now I have it to use.

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  8. Joanne | a.k.a JoJoJuly 3, 2012 at 10:42 AM

    I LOVE those patterned salad plates!

    I just blogged about how I set up a tablescape pretty simply. http://doublewideinthesky.blogspot.com/2012/06/patriotic-tablescape.html

    Exactly like you said. I change out the chargers and salad plates. I typically keep the dinner plates my every day white or clear or my Grandma's china.

    I can create an elaborate looking table in under 10 minutes. I LOVE that ease, but yet they are always so much fun!

    I WILL be looking into these plates at CB2. Thanks, so much!

    -Joanne

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  9. AnonymousJuly 3, 2012 at 11:46 AM

    I use the white pantry china from Williams-Sonoma. Like you, I use salad plates to 'change things up'. I have purchased some fun seasonal plates from PB. When I was growing up, one of my favorite jobs was to set the table with my mother's Limoges wedding china and crystal. I was thinking that sunflowers, zinnias or snapdragons would look great with your colorful plates. I especially like the idea of sunflowers with their yellow petals and black centers along with black ticking striped napkins. Isn't setting a table fun!

    Mary Beth

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  10. GirlieBekuJuly 4, 2012 at 12:09 AM

    I saw these over the weekend at my local CB2. I ALMOST bought them but they're too small for what I need them. Anyway, I left with some of these (the red ones): http://www.cb2.com/liquid-candleholders/f7773

    I love them. They're so bright in person! They're so cute I don't even want to put candles in them :-)

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  11. Maria M.July 4, 2012 at 2:26 AM

    Those plates are so cool! I love your way of dressing a table. My mom would bring out her beautiful vintage china for special occasions like birthdays and holidays, and I always loved it when she did. :-)

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    ReplyDelete
  13. AnonymousJuly 5, 2012 at 11:22 AM

    Love those! They add such a nice, bold detail! I feel like we've just been trying to survive the last couple of years and things like this aren't that important right now. But I WANT them to be! I hope once renovations are done on our house I can focus on pretty settings, etc. Thanks for the inspiration!

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  14. cheap cosplay costumesJuly 6, 2012 at 2:56 AM

    The plates are so cute!I will have a great mood in some beautiful plates when eating!

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  15. Gray MaherJuly 6, 2012 at 9:06 AM

    Looking for nice quality gold chargers, and other solid colors.....any suggestions??

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  16. Andrea @ Life Love LarsonJuly 7, 2012 at 10:53 PM

    I love my china and I vow to use it with my kids after reading this! :)

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  17. themeaningofmeJuly 9, 2012 at 1:41 PM

    I love the salad plate idea, too! Our basic everyday dishes are black, so I often pick up salad plates and serving pieces that will swap in and out for different looks easily. The ones you have here would be very cool on my black!

    We terrorized my husband's mother when we got married by not registering for "good" china. Instead we chose a full set of "everyday" dishes that we loved for our "good" set and have a basic set of black that we use alone or mixed in with those.

    We also have a small set of something completely whimsical that happened to be on clearance when we were setting up our place when we got married. The store was getting rid of it and it just happened to be something that was kind of a private joke for us.

    We also have way too many wine glasses in different colors for the same reason. Mixing in different glassware, extra pieces, and linens lets us change the look for different occasions, holidays, etc.

    Some people collect stamps, we have dinnerware, I guess!

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I so appreciate hearing from you. Nice comments make my day! Thanks for keeping things light here, friends! :)