my fine china

For my sisters late birthday dinner, I decided to make the table feel more special and pull out some of my "vintage" plates. (Read: some of them might be vintage, but the rest are random old thrift store finds.)  I keep an eye out for plates/saucers/bowls at thrift stores whenever I'm there.  (Just like I told you to do with knick-knacks!)  I find that it's easier to get pretty and interesting saucers and bowls, which works perfectly if you have clean, white china.  That's exactly what I did with this dinner; I used white Ikea plates and made the rest interesting with serving pieces and salad bowls.

None of these plates match, and except for the adorable octagonal one on the bottom right, they wouldn't be that exciting by themselves.  (I'm totally aware the big white one with the teal print is kind of ugly, but the color was gorgeous in person and fit perfectly into the group)  None of these cost more than a dollar apiece (and most were probably 2 or 3 for 99 cents!).  Don't worry about having a matching set, just get a color story going and you're good.