Amy Butler Functional Art

Emily loves Amy Butler fabrics! So I decided to make her some decoupage plates and matching napkins with some Amy Butler coordinating prints. After searching the net for "how to" make the plates, I found a description on Kaboose.com. The instructions had a difficulty rating of "Very Easy". Let's hope so! I learned quickly that our local fabric shops don't carry her designs. After trekking all the way to Ashland, I could only find one print. So I tried the internet again and found quite a few options on the Hancocks of Paducah website. Here are the prints I selected:



The first coat of glue is drying... that modge podge is smelly stuff!



After several coats of glue, I trimmed and sanded around the edges of each plate. The fabric really didn't want to stick so I added even more glue just under the edge with a Qtip. Then followed up with three coats of spray acrylic sealer (also very stinky stuff).



Here's the finished product with matching napkins! The plates are not water proof, but could be used for sandwiches or snacks. I bought some plate hangers so she could display the plates as kitchen art when she isn't using them.



A few lessons learned from this project:

Use lightweight and tighter woven fabrics, they tend to stick better to the plate.
You might want to tackle this project in warmer weather. Gluing and spraying outdoors to avoid getting a headache from the smelly fumes!
Waiting until the last minute to start creates stess!