Decorating Ideas - Shabby Chic Mix and Match Vintage Style Dinnerware
89When I was a young girl, I learned that new brides not only take on one man for the rest of their lives, but commit to a china pattern as well. Which can be a great thing as a bride can register her intended dishware pattern and wedding guest will buy it for her.
Well, almost 40 years later, I still haven't settled on a specific china pattern. Sure, I've had a brief fling here and there with some classic dishware designs but have never made a real commitment. I love them all? Who can settle for just one pattern?
As a china pattern is a reflection of who you are, my mix and match collection of dishware reflects the way my minds works. And with the current decorating trend of shabby chic, I find that my taste is not really out of style.
I've learned that mixing and matching dishware can work. Of course, certain patterns and color combinations work better than others.Here are some tips on mixing and matching china patterns for a real shabby chic look.
 | Here a small mixed set of blue and white. Amazon Price: $23.99 |
 | Here is a lovely pink plate Amazon Price: $54.45 |
 | I love the combination of green, brown, and red. The Friendly village collection is so old fashioned, for a perfect vintage look Amazon Price: $12.52 List Price: $15.00 |
Everything Goes With White
Many, if not most, china patterns include white. If you have a set of plain white dishes, you can intersperse them with other, printed designs.
I like transferware, particularly reproductions of Victorian styles. I also have some old, vintage dishware. These designs can be quite ornate, often a color printed on a white background. If every piece of transferware is different, set the table white one white plate, then a transferware plate, then a white plate and so on.
You can also use a large white dinner plate or sever with a transferware plate on top. White works to unify a group of mixed design plates in several colors if you don't have enough of one color.
Shabby Chic - Blue and White Dishes
Blue and White China
There are lots of blue and white china patterns. From spongeware to Flow Blue to Blue Willow, a blue and white color combination is pure and pretty as the sky on a sunny day.
Although I am inordinately fond of blue and white dishware, I never use my Flow Blue. It is too old and valuable to use even on a holiday. If one of my 130 year old plates was broken at a party, I'd be crushed. Not wanting a dinner party to end in violence, I keep my Flow Blue for decorative purposes only.
But the other blue and white dishes get along famously, especially if mixed with white dishware. Blue and white works with a shabby chic style as well as with traditional styles.
Shabby Chic - Blue and Brown Dishes
Blue and Brown Dishware
Over the years, I have accumulated a lot of brown dishes, including some plain brown as well as brown and white transferware.
I think that blue and brown look lovely together. I even enjoy looking at my blue and brown bowls piled up in the cupboard. Sometimes all brown can seem a bit dismal, and all blue can be a bit much. They work well and balance one another out.
 | A beautiful vintage style brown and white pattern. Amazon Price: $74.99 List Price: $126.00 |
 | I love this pattern with the center image of an elk. Amazon Price: $29.99 List Price: $45.00 |
 | Blue and white looks so clean and pretty! Amazon Price: $99.50 List Price: $150.00 |
Other Ideas for Mix and Match Shabby Chic
Once you get started, there is no end to the variety of groupings when you mix and match vintage or vintage style dishes. Here are some of the combinations that I like. Of course, you can probably find other combinations of your own.
- Pink and green go well together in Spring and make an excellent color combination for an Easter dinner or lunch. On the first day of Spring, I line my open hutch with pink and green dishes to celebrate the season. Pink and green seems to work well in summer too. And there is nothing like using pink and green in the summer.
- Green and brown are my dishware choice for Fall. On the hutch or on the table, brown for the trunk of the trees, and green for the last green of summer.
- Green and cranberry look nice at Christmas as green and red are a traditional Christmas combination. I like to use a white lace table cloth because it reminds me of snow.
- Maybe all the green and cranberry transferware look a bit much, but it can be tempered with the addition of those plain white plates mentioned earlier. And let's face it, Christmas decorating is all a bit over the top, so why not go all the way and take it to the table!
- Mix and Match Depression glass. I love Depression glass. It looks so pretty and delicate for a lunch or tea. Just like the rest of the collection, my Depression glass is a varied combination of colors, but mostly green and pink. I think that the pink and green Depression glass works well with the other pink and green mentioned earlier.
Mixing and Matching Dishes Saves Money
Buying an entire set of dishes can be quite expensive. You can center on a particular theme such as:
Blue and white
Cranberry and white
Brown and purple
Brown and green
Brown and blue
Green and brown
or various patterns in one color. That way, you can pick up items that you like for bargain prices at thrift stores, antique shops, discount stores like Ross or T J Maxx, and flea markers.
For a little while, having all those mismatched dishes made me feel like less of a woman, as if I never really grew up, and could never make a decision. Well, okay, that's me. If I haven't grown up by now, it's not going to happen.
Mixing and Matching the Old and the New
Flow Blue
- Flow Blue - How to ID and Value the Collectible Blue and White Antique China
Flow Blue is a highly collectible, antique blue and white china popular during the Victorian age. Known for it's hazy blue pattern on bright white China, Flow Blue has experienced resurgences of popularity and shown up in reproductions for everyday u
Spongeware and Stoneware
- Antique Spongeware and Spatterware - An American Stoneware Tradition
Stoneware is a tough, versatile type of pottery made in the US for 300 years. The antique blue and white spatterware and spongeware is a popular collectible that is still being produced today.
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Whoa! -- This is just up my alley. . .shabby, chic and mix and match! Lol!
I have always loved to mix and match my dishware. And you're so right! It goes so well with my Shabby chic decor. In Sweden we are very fond of blue and white pattern. It blends beautiful with the Scandinavian interior style. I love to visit auctions and thrift shops and get my hands on pretty and inexpensive dishes that goes well with what I already have.
Dolores -- Wonderful hub!
Voted up, shared and pushed all the right buttons.
Love the mix and match vintage style, and adding the modern looks as in the video gives a delightful flair to a setting. Thanks for sharing this free style concept.
Grow up where dishes are concerned? Why? There are too many serious issues we need to be sober about--surely we can have fun with our dishes! :)
Awesome Hub for anyone who knows about flow blue and wants to collect it, but also for anyone who wants to bring a flavor of yesterday into their lives.
Your ideas and suggestions let us look at the richness of our past and bring it into our present.
Beautiful hub, voted up, useful, interesting, and everything else.
Hey Dolores, I have been saving cobalt blue glasses,candle stick holders ect. and white milk glass dishes for years. I agree blue and white are smashing together. I also have the same little brown pitcher in your Photo above. This is so cool. I set my table in mixed patterns too. Good job on this hub.
Great hub Dolores. Mixing and matching tableware is a great idea. Somehow it makes a lot of sense, creating both a chic look and terrific conversations.
BTW, you might want to look at the 2nd paragraph of brown and blue dishware. Think it could do with a typo correction lol
I inherited all of my china and am honestly not sure what I would have selected for myself. There are so many great possibilities!
Hi DoloresMonet, I still remember the patterns on the dishes that my grandmother had on her dinnerware, when I was a child. Cool hub, thanks.
Home decorating is a passion and hobby of mine, and I love learning new ideas. I noticed you have Blue Willow and Spode. My grandmother gave me full set of blue Spode or what she called, "Willow Ware," which I cherish. Wonderful hub, full of interesting info! :-)
Hi, GmaGoldie - thank you! I don't care if they are the wrong size, there is no wrong size. I just mix it all up. But there are certain combinations that look better than others. I became so crazy for transferware for a while...
Hi, Sannel - oh I know the Swedish fondness for blue and white. I loved the Swedish country look that was big for awhile, what with the lace curtains and all. I was using lace tablecloths as curtains, but took them down in favor of Indian bedspreads. Don't know why I never use actual curtains. Thank you!
Hi RT - a dear friend of mine once said "childhood is a short time but immaturity is forever." Not really what you were talking about but I had to get that in somewhere, haha. Thank you!
Hi, Sally - thank you so kindly! There is a long sad story about the Flow Blue which I won't go into now, but there was once a whole set that belonged to my great grandmother and is now kaput thanks to someone who will remain nameless but if she ever reads this - you know who you are.
suzzycue - I am in love with that brown pitcher. I have 2 bowls and plates as well. I saw some many years ago in an antique store in upstate NY but there are a lot of reproductions out there. I love reproductions, you don't have to worry about breakage.
Hawksdream - Hi Alison - oooh thank you glad you caught it, going now to take a look!
Alison - whoah, hahaha, that one was hilarious. I'm really glad you pointed it out!
randomcreative - love that old inherited stuff. To touch the old things used by the people in your past, maybe even relatives that you never met is so wonderful. Thank you!
Brina - the old grandmother type dishes went out of style for awhile and so can be picked up for a song.
Genna East - hi! Actually Blue Willow is the pattern that features the Oriental scene with willow trees and a little bridge. The patterns featured in the image are Finlandia, a pattern made by several manufacturers. The cup and saucer in front are Flow Blue, a Wentworth pattern from the late 19th century. The village scene on the left, I forgot what it is, would have to check. The pitcher in the background is 19th century stoneware with a sponged pattern. Thank you!
Hi, my name is Marcy and I'm addicted to dinnerware. It's a serious addiction, by the way. I just had to read this and savor your ideas and photos. I like the blue and brown combination. If I had the room to put them, I'd probably have 100 sets in different colors and patterns - wouldn't that be fun to play with? Voted up and beautiful.
Ha, ha, so it is. I pick up pretty plates at the thrift store, then put them back and sigh. Enough is enough. But every once in a while...
Voted up, interesting and beautiful. You have the same colour choices as me, so of course I love this hub! I have mostly white but I like to colour the table with additional bowls, vases, napkins etc., again, like you, depending on the time of year or the celebration. This hub has a lovely homely, comforting, cosy, family feel; made me smile on a cold, grey winter's day. Thanks!
I knew I'd like reading this hub when I saw the title. I have a collection of mix matched blue and white dishes and love them. I used to just display them and a few years ago I decided to start using them everyday. My food looks and tastes better on these pretty plates, which is a good thing because I'm not a very good cook.
annart - thank you, how lovely! Like a lot of my hubs, I really need to add more pix, have a lot of trouble with indoor photos. Yes, white is the glue that blends them all together.
GreenArt - haha, they say that the color blue decreases the appetite so you're good. But who says you are not a good cook? What is a good cook? If you make food from scratch, you are a good cook.
Maybe the problem is my dirty oven not my cooking. The smoke alarm tends to go off whenever I bake anything longer than an hour. I know I should clean my oven more often than I do. I'll put it on the top of my spring cleaning list:)
Green Art - ugh, what a job. But the food must take on a wonderful smoky taste, haha. I just aired the house out, opened all the windows, it was lovely. Then I burned the ground beef I was browning for dinner and now it stinks in here. Oh well....
The last time I cleaned my oven I used a mixture of baking soda and water. It worked quite well as a paste and wiped off great. Time to find the baking soda again. Sorry to hear you burned your ground beef, been their, done that:)
Really? I should try that. I still use those awful oven cleaners. Ugh. But I let it get so nasty that it takes some real power to get off the gunk.
Totally admire anyone who can mix and match. I have china I love that I picked 36 years ago, but still haven't found the right dinnerware for every day. Maybe mixing and matching would be a good idea.
Nice Hub...Thumbs up!!!
Hi Dolores,
Loved your photos of your beautiful mix and match dishes. I have sets of china from my grandmother, my mother, my husband's grandmother plus a set I bought and that we still use. I have other partial sets handed down through the family, so obviously I have never had much need to purchase dishes. If I did not have all of this, I think that I would go your route on choosing dishes. Thrift shops have such pretty selections and mixing and matching would be so much fun.
I had to laugh about your statement of growing up. Aren't we all kids at heart? Haha! Up votes and will share.
Hi, Peggy - thank you very much! There is a local high end consignment shop that I love to visit. They have so many beautiful dishes - I find it so hard to turn away. But enough is enough. My son's beloved loves some of the old stuff. I sneak some off with her when she visits - the son wants to be minimalist. Phooey. (Whoops, there is the child again)
Dolores, fun article, I'm far from "chic" but I'll take shabby. I really like to pick out pieces from thrift shops and flea markets or swap meets, which ever you call them, maybe sale barns? I have favorite bowls, plates of all sorts, some from estates of relatives so handling plates or other things that you know has been in the family since the 1800s has a mystic feel when you pause to think about what was served on it and the "who" of all the angles from cook to the consumer and how many times it has survived washings, use, and long distance moves. I really like the heavy glazed ware from the 40s and 50s. I have pieces that I have designated as the one that gets used for a specific food. I never gave much thought to that point until now. One thing is certain the table setting does not match, ever but I'm pleased with the way it goes together. There are few get togethers these days but when folks come for a feed that moves to the "entertaining area" where the 1952 O'Keeffe and Merritt stove is lit up with it's neon cross light built into the back splash that has a clock/timer and cooking times and temperatures on brown paper under glass and the doors to the oven and "Grill-evator" that is chrome and instructions printed into the porcelain coated inside of the doors, it stands out like a "Cadillac" of the 50s. The chics that attend often start the dinner conversation, that begins with the stove and flows into the table settings. I think that reflects that as a "guy" I may have accidentally picked the right things over the years of suiting myself.
Thanks for a view of some of yours and an entertaining topic crowned with a relative video,
Dustin
50 Caliber - Dustin, I swear...if you'd write some hubs about your stuff...I can see a whole hub about the old stove. I am wondering if that's the stove my mother had or at least similar. I love those old stoves. My mother's had that wonderful grill with an enamel cover and the chrome running along the back. It was beautiful.
GmaGoldie Level 7 Commenter 3 months ago
Beautiful! The blue and white in your photo is my personal favorite. Crisp, clean a little bit elegant, a little bit nautical, perfect for the casual home.
When I was younger I shunned mix and match and then my tastes matured and I can see the beauty. The item is doing it right and buying it at the right price. eBay is my favorite. I can literally hunt for hours. Be careful of the size I have gotten caught with the wrong size - too large (way too large for a plate for $5 - doesn't fit and too small). Always double check the size.
Oh, I love your work, would love to see your home. Perhaps when the videos are up and running we can learn much more.
Keep up the great work - voted up and beautiful - but of course.