The dish on my dishes~*

I am a bit of a dinnerware collector, as my storage in the corner cupboard would suggest.  Stashed there are the summery sweet blue & red sketched sunflower painted pottery set my mom most generously gave me {they chip too easily for daily use so we save them for occasions}, the vintage aqua melamine & assorted plastic dishes that I collected when the kids were bitty & now serve as slumber party/picnic/bang around set, a lovely set of revolutionary war commemorative dishes that a colleague gave me {too fine to use, too many to display}, and my blue-plate-special-diner dishes {ordered from a restaurant supply place} that are sturdy, neutral & easy to replace.  I've had other sets, but have given away or sold them...these I could not part with.

But it is our everyday dishes are my most favoritest thing ever~*  

I can not take credit for the idea-- it was my mom & dad that got me started {they started out collecting hotel pewter, then silverware & so forth, & I fell in love with the idea and blatantly copied}.  I'll go through my silverware collection some other time {it is also assorted vintage hotel silverware-- heavy, high quality, and sturdy enough for everyday use}.  In fact, I have a few collections to share.  But today, I'm focusing on my porcelain prides & joys.

The dishes are mismatched, random, & wildly varied in color, shape & style.  They come from hotel closeouts & random collectors {mostly procured by my eBay-master dad on our behalf-- he buys & sells..er...sells so he can buy, if we are being strictly honest-- a few of my old pyrex set are for sale now, but I digress}.  

Some plates in my collection are very vintage, some modern, none are pristine {they are used restaurant ware after all}, but all are beautiful & I adore them.

There are a gazillion {yeah, no kidding, a gazillion} combinations, so I've limited this photo epic it to a handful of my favorite combinations. 

The last photo set are a few of my favorite plates in general. The red & white are not hotel pieces-- finding serving pieces was proving difficult, so my husband & I decided to collect random red & white pieces to use.  The other difficulty with our collection are the bowls-- they are much harder to find, tend to be more expensive, and are mostly of the wide & shallow soup bowl variety {& they do not hold enough to satisfy my son's addiction to cinnamon toast crunch}.  We mostly use the blue & white diner bowls, though we do have a couple of hotel pieces & are continuing the quest~*

I have more collections that I'll share in future posts-- here is a bit of a teaser.  

I mentioned the silver one-serve tea pots:

and my silverware

but there are also my "bubble glasses"

and our historical memorabilia {like this "soldier's sweetheart" postcard from 1920s Germany}

Oh & of course there is the furniture {like our wooden late-40s dining room chairs that sit around the fantastic door table imagined by my mom & built by my dad}

And there is more.  Cecilia is a tiny house, but she is loaded with quirky gems.  What sort of things do you all collect?

Here's hoping your Thursday is packed with treasures~*