When we found out that our son was due in mid-November, I realized that we would inevitably have family visiting us during the Thanksgiving holidays. For someone who had ALWAYS traveled to family for Thanksgiving, this became a daunting realization. Fortunately, our visiting family offered to cook the meal itself and, while my mom assured me that a “pretty” table was not important, I couldn’t settle with the idea of my first hosted holiday meal being on paper plates.
I also wanted to involve my daughter (2.5 years old at the time) and give us a fun mommy-daughter project after her brother arrived. This Fall Plate Charger idea fit both of my post-partum haze requirements: moderately attractive for the season and easy enough for a toddler assistant. Advanced apologies for the pictures as I took them after we finished, but I think they give a decent idea of how we arrived at the final product.
What I Used:
- Cardboard
- Fake fall leaves
- Hot glue gun
- Optional: heavy duty fabric
(1) Take the plate(s) you intend to use, and trace the largest plate on your cardboard and fabric (optional). Cut out.
(2) Starting at the outside, hot glue leaves around the circle. As my daughter was handing me leaves to add and otherwise organizing them, we decided to leave it at one row of leaves.
(3) OPTIONAL: hot glue fabric circle on top of leaves.
You could leave the cardboard bare (it will be covered by a plate, after all), paint it, or whatever. I opted for fabric because it would be more gentle to my fine china than cardboard or even the leaves themselves, and I found this heavy duty, soft fabric in the clearance section of my fabric store. It was also non-toxic, and wouldn’t be an eye sore if there was any open space between the leaves and the plate.
(5) Add plate and food and enjoy!
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