make your own plate hangers on the CHEAP!

want to hang plates on your walls….but don’t want to pay the high price tag of those little metal contraptions you get at the store? well, here is a way to make your own plate holders on the CHEAP. and when i say cheap, i mean…..basically free!! plus they are super easy to make.

this is how i hung the plates on my plate wall in my dining room.  {for tips on designing and hanging your own plate wall, click here}.

when i decided i wanted to do a plate wall to show off my collection of white milk glass plates, i instantly thought of the major expense of purchasing those annoying little metal plate hangers from the store. UGH. soooo expensive! {and is it just me, but aren’t they kind of annoying? i swear i can never get them to hang straight} i looked into fabric hangers, cloth plate holders, and i either couldn’t find them or didn’t want to fork over left arm for them. amd then i saw how In My Own Style used paper clips to hang her plates. brilliant. {fyi her plates have hung with paper clips for the last 10 years} so i dug around my junk  drawer  neat and tidy desk drawer trying to find a handful of paper clips so i could make her handy little plate hangers……but then i remembered i had thrown out all of the paper clips when we moved this summer….. because i like never need paper clips……until now. argh. i couldn’t just go out and BUY paper clips. that defeated the whole purpose of the paper clip idea. then as i was putting the random bits and pieces back into our junk drawer {very carefully. so i could shut it}, i realized i had a bajillion safety pins laying there.

would safety pins work??

i had no idea. i thought about it for an entire day. i was skeptical and scared. i rather like my milk glass plates! i asked davis what he thought. after a short discussion, we decided to try it on the small plates in my collection.

i was scared. very scared.

this is what we did:

How to Make Your Own Plate Hangers

 

Supplies:

1 safety pin, per plate

super glue that is rated for glass {i used E6000}

fine grit sandpaper

1. first clean your plates so that all debris and dirty are removed. then dry thoroughly.

2. we then sanded a small circle on the back of the plate inside the ring about an 1″ or so away from the ring. {you only need to sand it for about 5-10 seconds. not much is needed} sanding the glass roughs up the pores of the glass to help make sure the glue adheres well to the plate well.

3. place a dot of super glue in the sanded circle.

4. then place the safety pin head {large metal part} in the super glue making sure that the bottom of the safety pin that has the little circle goes up and over the ring as shown in the picture above.

5. cover the head of the safety pin with more super glue so that you have glue on all sides of the safety pin.

6. allow to dry according the the label on your super glue. we let our plates dry over night. some actually needed a little longer partly due to our humid climate and also some plates had large blobs of super glue around the safety pin.

7. test to make sure that your pin will hold your plate. i recommend doing this over something soft. like a pillow on the floor. {just in case!}

as long as your safety pin plate hanger passed the test, you’re now ready to hang your plate!

***this may not work for large, heavy plates. my plates are saucers and salad plates up to 9″ in diameter.***

this is my plate wall! my plates have hung on the wall using safety pin hangers for over a month now and i haven’t had any problems! yay!

if you’re looking to hang your own plate wall and want to learn how to do it with only putting 1 hole in the wall per plate, click here.

Linda
Hi! I'm Linda, the craft addict behind Craftaholics Anonymous®, a craft blog. Crafting is cheaper than therapy, right? When I'm not DIYing something, I can be found taxiing around our 4 crazy kids or working out. Or shoe shopping... because you can never have too many shoes! Happy crafting! ♥
Linda
Linda

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