Who Wants to be Martha when I can be ME?

I stole the title of this post from my good friend, Lyndsay, who has an amazing blog of all the crafty things she creates (mostly crochet).  I am hoping that she won't mind my plagiarism since I have endorsed her blog and hopefully she will get more footfall there and at her Etsy store.  :)  You can go visit her at: http://whowantstobemarthawhenicanbeme.blogspot.co.uk/

I would not class myself as a super-crafty person.  I enjoy making things but it takes me ages to finish projects and I have to stick to the pattern otherwise disaster can and will strike (I have a half-made baby bootie to attest to this truth).  I would consider myself a stubborn person, though.  When an idea takes hold, I need to do it, get it, etc.  So when I wanted a 3-tiered cake stand made from vintage china and the lady who makes and sells them went AWOL, I decided I was going to have to make one myself.  It wasn't a hard sell, since it a) meant I would get to have a stand made from exclusively blue-and-white china (my fav!), and that b) I wold have to rummage around the car boot sale and thrift shops to procure said china. So after a month or two of hunting (and acquiring some pieces to keep in my cupboard sans holes) I was ready to get cracking (or hopefully not).

With the emotional support of my friend Megan, and with access to her hand-drill (and her help with the drilling when my arms gave out!) I was able to create my perfect cake stand. 

To get started you will need a hand-drill with drill bits suitable from drilling through ceramic (£2.49 for the drill bits on Amazon), and the hardware for supporting your plates (£4.00 on Amazon).

After that comes the fun bit! (Get it, bit?  You're using drill bits?  I crack myself up.)  Using whatever pottery you like, you get to make your very own original design. You can mix different shapes of plates or do the top tier as a bowl, or tea cup and saucer, whatever you fancy!  I found that the more 'real' the pottery was, the easier it was to drill through.  My knock-off Royal Copenhagen took ages to drill through, whereas my very real almost-killed-me-to-drill-through-it piece of Staffordshire pottery was a dream to get through.

You need to figure out the centre of your plate.  A piece of paper can be useful for this step since the bottom ridge of the plate can be traced out, and the paper folded to find the middle.

Then you get to drill all your holes.  Be warned. This can take hours.  Go to a friend's house and have a cup of tea and a chat to make the time pass by more pleasantly.  :)

Once you have holes in all your places, you can assemble your stand.

 The best part about this project is that the stand can be versatile.  Use as many tiers as you like!  If you aren't having many goodies or many friend round, why not just use one tier?  More friends?  Add the second tier, or go all out for really fancy and festive occasions.

One....

Two...

Three!

For about £10 (less than half of what it would have cost me if I had bought this from someone else) I got to have the fun of learning a new skill and hunting down my perfect plates (50 pence - £2). Now I just need to have a get-together worthy of finger sandwiches to christen the stand.  :)