She’s one of those characters that everyone loves to hate: Professor Umbridge! If you are a Harry Potter fan, you probably know that she is known for her love of both the color pink and cats.
And while I do love to hate her, as a fellow crazy cat lady (I have three of them), I admire her interior design style.
When Marissa at Rae Gun Ramblings invited me to participate in her Harry Potter craft series, it took me a while to come up with an idea I was really into, but when this came to mind I knew I absolutely had to do it! You can make just one or two cat plates for a little display, or go full Umbridge and deck out an entire wall! (Be sure to check out Rae Gun Ramblings for LOTS more Harry Potter craft ideas, along with other great stuff.)
I intend to eventually do an entire wall, and when I do I will be sure to update this post. In the meantime, however, I have to find just the right plates for this project. Because, in true Umbridge style, I need plates that have a lot of PINK on them! (My local thrift stores are currently saturated with plates in browns, so pink is a little more difficult to come by right now. Boo.) So it might take a few weeks for me to yard sale and thrift store my way to enough plates to tackle a kitty gallery wall.
Meanwhile, I started with one!
You will also need:
- Cat photo enlarged to fit plate
- Ink pad
- Cereal box
- Mod Podge
- Clear spray paint
- Paintbrush
- Scissors
I printed my photo on a color laser printer. It’s my kitty Abracadabra as a baby (she’s about 4 now), in a dress. (Bracing myself for the blast from people lecturing me about putting clothes on the cat being cruel… If you saw the blissful way she reacts when I put clothing on her (I made her a sweater when she got bigger), curling up in a ball like she is wearing her own private blanket and purring up a storm, you’d be hard pressed to call it cruelty. But I digress.) Also, it’s on a pink background. It seemed sufficiently Umbridge-ish.
You will need a circle template to cut out the cat photo to the right size for the face of the plate. I found a nifty way to do this!
Flip over your plate and see if it has a raised ridge around the bottom. Most plates do. Press a rubber stamp ink pad against the ridge, working all the way around. Then press the bottom of the plate onto a cereal box or other recycled piece of cardboard to make an impression of the ridge. Cut this out, and you should have a circle template that fits quite nicely on your plate!
Use your circle template to trim down your cat photo.
Paint the surface of the plate with a medium-thick coat of Mod Podge and center the picture on the plate; carefully work out any air bubbles and smooth it down. Wait a few minutes and then paint another coat of Mod Podge over the top to seal it in.
After my Mod Podge was completely dry, I also gave my plate a quick coat of clear spray paint. We’ve been having a really humid summer, so the spray paint will make sure the Mod Podge doesn’t get slightly tacky on severely sticky days!
I think Professor Umbridge would approve, even though my version isn’t quite as magical as hers. If only I could find my wand…
Stay tuned for more kitty plates coming soon – I am SO EXCITED to get my gallery wall set up!
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