How to Create Beautiful Decorative Fall Plates for Your Home

Fall is the perfect season to transform your dining space with personalized touches that capture autumn’s warm, cozy spirit. Create your own beautiful decorative fall plates for an easy and budget-friendly way to add seasonal charm to your table setting, whether you’re hosting a casual autumn gathering or Thanksgiving dinner, or simply want to embrace the season in your everyday decor.

These DIY custom fall plates will become conversation starters that reflect your unique style and bring those rich autumn colors and textures right to your table.

In this step-by-step tutorial, I’ll show you everything you need to know to create stunning decorative fall plates that will elevate your seasonal decorating game.

Whether you want to use fall plates as decorative decor or as dishes for your autumn tables, you can use this DIY project.

You can customize these plates to your liking. Once you know the steps, you can then pick your design and color, and gather your other supplies. Then you are ready to start making decorative fall plates.

This project is not hard, I promise. It’s also very inexpensive. That’s two checks in my book.

If you follow Bluesky at Home, you know I love creating pretty accessories for our home. If you enjoy the creative process, then you’ll really like this project.

This post contains affiliate links to products used to create this project. If you should order any item from this site, I may receive compensation, but you do not pay a penny more. Your purchase is greatly appreciated as it helps support the continued publication of this site.

Decorative Fall Plates: My Inspiration

Are you an artist? If you are, then my hat is off to you. I’m not, so I rely on stencils to create artistic designs on all sorts of surfaces.

With the right stencils and other simple supplies, you can create pretty designs that have depth, color, and interest for any season. Fall is a great time to add your own style to you. table decor.

It’s easy when you know the easy steps to follow.

I did have a small inspiration for making these decorative fall plates. We found these darling bread and butter plates at a store called Mast General Store in Boone, North Carolina, last summer when we were visiting friends who have a home in Blowing Rock.

We are going back to Blowing Rock next month, and I hope we go back to that fun store.

I still needed salad plates for a little dinner party we were hosting. That’s when the idea of making more decorative fall plates popped into my head.

Also, I made these fall chargers with decoupage recently, and I think the DIY decorative plates will work great with them.

Supplies for the Decorative Plates

It only takes a few supplies to make these decorative fall plates. I plan to use them as part of my fall tablescape this season.

• a plate or shallow bowl of your preferred size – I found 4 shallow bowls at the Resale Shop – $4.00 for all. Thrift stores, flea markets, and garage sales are great places to find plain white plates.

• fall stencil of choice – I chose the Leaf Stencil from A Makers’ Studio. There are about two dozen different leaves on a single sheet.

NOTE: These stencils are no longer available, but I found plenty of options online for fall leaf adhesive stencils:

• this set of fall leaves, 5 X5-inches
• this set of fall leaves with pinecone and “happy fall ya’ll”
• this set of 42 leaves

• Ceramic Paint in your colors of choice – I used two colors: Hot and Spice and Dark Chocolate Latte.

NOTE: Again, this product is no longer available, but I found some great alternate stencil paints in great colors: 15-set stencil paint set. You might also try these ceramic paints. There are colors perfect for fall.

• cover for your workspace
• plastic scraper to apply paint and a piece of cardboard
• scissors – to cut out stencils
• container of water – for cleaning stencils

You will use the cardboard to offload your Ceramic Paint.

Why Stencil Paint?

• It can be applied to ceramics, porcelain, glass, wood, and metal.
• It is food-safe.
• It can be microwaved.
• It can be hand-washed.
• It is no-bake.
• It comes in a range of beautiful colors.
• It goes a long way.

Why These Stencils?

• Tri-mesh stencils allow for a depth of design.
• The stencils can be repositioned if needed.
• The stencils have an adhesive backing so they adhere to your surface and paint will not bleed through.
• The stencils can be washed of paint and reused multiple times.

Creating Decorative Fall Plates

Step 1 – Prepare Your Plates/Bowls

Remove price stickers and/or tape from the plates. Use Goo Gone to remove the stickiness. Thoroughly wash and dry.

Step 2 – Prepare Your Stencils

Choose your stencils and use scissors to cut out the stencil you want to use. I chose four leaf stencil designs.

Do not remove the stencils from the paper backing yet.

Pull the tri-mesh stencil from the paper backing. Set the backing aside. You will place the stencil back on the backing when you are finished with it.

Place the stencil design on the plate and position it where you want it.

Smooth down the stencil on the plate. Make sure there are no bubbles. If necessary, you can remove the stencil and reposition it.

Step 3 – Apply the Ceramic Paint to the Stencils

Squeeze out a small amount of your preferred paint color onto a piece of cardboard or glass.

Use your plastic scraper to transfer the paint from the cardboard to the surface of the stencil. Smooth the paint across the stencil, pressing down as you go.

Be sure to cover the design completely.

Remove the Stencil from the Surface

Carefully remove the stencil from the surface. Use your scraper to “pick up” a corner of the stencil and pull it back from the surface to reveal your design.

Cleaning Your Stencils

Have a bowl of water in a container ready. As soon as you remove the stencil from the surface, place it in the water.

Use your fingers to rub off the paint from the stencil. When you have removed all the paint, remove the stencil from the water. Place the stencil, design side down, on a paper towel to dry.

Discard the colored water and refill your container with fresh water.

Repeat this process with your remaining plates and stencils.

After you finish applying the Ceramic Paint to the stencils, allow the paint to thoroughly dry. I let mine dry overnight.

Finally, return your cleaned stencils to the paper backing and store them in the plastic envelope that the stencils came in.

Using Your Decorative Fall Plates

You could use the decorative fall plates as a decor accessory. You could also attach a hanger to the back of the plate and hang it on a wall or cabinet.

I chose to use mine as actual dishes on my fall tablescape.

Want more fall decor with a leaf theme?

• How to Make Leaf Art on Canvas
• How to Make Easy Leaf-Inspired Air Dry Clay Coasters
• How to Use DIY Paper Leaves 5 Ways

That’s how easy it is to make decorative fall plates. You can pick different designs to have completely customized plates or bowls of your own.

TIP: If you don’t want to use stencils, you can use the Ceramic Paint and paint freehand designs on the plates.

More Ideas for Using Ceramic Paint

I love using Ceramic Paint and Stencils to make decorative items for our home. Would you like to see some more projects like this one?

You can easily create these lovely decorative fall plates for your own. Just pick out your favorite stencil and paint colors. And don’t forget to think ahead to fall, Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

Be sure to PIN this DIY stencil fall plate project for inspiration. Check out my Pinterest Boareds: Fall DIY Ideas, Fall Home Decor Ideas, and Stencil Projects.