A Plate Full of Gratitude

It is the last day of school. It is always such a bittersweet time of year. We have been blessed with some wonderful teachers and amazing human beings in our lives this school year and we want to make sure these people know how much they have meant to us.

I have 7 children in 5 different schools, all with multiple teachers. We started a project for our teachers about a month ago and today is the day to share our thank you’s. We painted plates.

Plate Project

This is a project I’ve done before with my older kids and I love projects that have several steps. We talk about what we are grateful for. We share stories and what our teachers are like. We decide what colors or designs might be their favorites. And I can divvy up the kids into different steps so I’m not trying to help 7 kids all at once!

Supplies

I ordered all of the supplies on Amazon and we are pleased with the results. We needed glass plates, clear is best as we painted on the back side so the design shows through. We used ceramic paints that get baked onto the glass when we are done. Smallish brushes for details were purchased and that’s all we needed! We did have plenty of paper towels and we spread out butcher paper to work on at the table. The paint can be cleaned up with water before it dries, but the butcher paper made clean up easier.

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The Process

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Pictures explain it best… I painted the designs for the younger kids in black outline. Doing the prep painting myself after they went to bed was a wonderful way to relax and let my mind wander. A couple of the older kids worked on their own designs. Then the kids “colored in” the designs once the black outlines were dry.

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A day or less to dry all the paint and then bake it in the oven. The directions are on the paint bottles, but basically, put the glassware in the oven while it’s cold, heat to 350 degrees, bake for 30 minutes, let it cool in the oven.

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The Gifting

Wrapping presents is one of my kids’ favorite things to do. We included a box of brownie mix and a note that said, “Thank you for helping me grow this year.”

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Served up with love!

***An Added Note***

These look like small bottles of paint, but it goes a long way! We have so much left that the kids want to make plates for us here at home. It’ll be one of our summer activities, along with using the paint to make our own summer glasses for lemonade and ice tea.

We have canning jars, so the kids and I are going to freestyle some art on the outside of the jars and turn them into drinking glassware. I won’t do the outlines for them… they can just paint as they wish. This way, everyone will have their own glass, which they can keep track of and I won’t be washing a million different cups all summer. I’m sure we will still have paint left, so I may remember to do the same project with mugs in the fall for our winter tea and cider.

I’d really love to have you along for the journey! Sign up here to get email notes every time I post a new article. There are a lot more stories to come!!!