Dish Deal Love....

For a long time I fought the white and ivory dish trend. I figured, color is always better! But then I started seeing more and more place settings online and at the homes of friends, and I began to have a change of heart. I realized how that the dishes had a wonderful "pop" when foods were placed on it, and how great they looked against a dark table or on top of colorful placemats. And I started to cave. I began what would be a long search for the perfect white dishes. I looked everywhere but could not find a shade and pattern that I truly loved AND that fit my budget. I simply could not justify spending $200 on a set of dishes. Even $150 was pushing it for me (yeah, I'm cheap like that!). Enter Big Lots. I love Big Lots but hadn't even thought to search them out for white dishes. So one day I stopped in and perused the housewares section. Then, I saw them. There, on the bottom shelf. A box sitting off by itself, the cardboard lid half open and partially taped down. A 16 piece set of beautiful ivory dishes, with just enough scalloping on the edges to keep them from looking too plain, but not enough to put them over the top. And the best part was the pricetag - $20.



The maker was Thomson Pottery and the color and pattern was Bianca. Bianca. Sounds great I thought! I immediately snatched those beauties up and headed off to the check out counter. Later that afternoon at home I admired my new dishes as I took them from the box and loaded them into the diswasher for their very first wash. Then my heart sank. One of the bowls was completely broken in half and had a chip on one of the edges. I was immediatley bummed. I knew that glue would only work for so long, but even so I pulled out the Gorilla Glue (LOVE that stuff!) and had my hubby help me glue it back together and secure it with rubber bands. I let it cure for a couple of days and the glue held! However, I was a little hesitant to put very hot food in that particular bowl, or to put it in the dishwasher. I wanted to keep that bowl intact -I mean a 15 piece set isn't nearly as fun as a 16 piece set, right? :)

I loved my new dishes. I loved the way they looked on my mahogany dining table, on top of my colorful red and orange placemats, with a heap of pasta and colorful veggies. That's when I knew I had to have another set. Service for 4 - what a bore, but service for 8 - that is great, I thought!! So back to Big Lots I went. It was then that I realized that Big Lots is Big Lots for a reason. They get in a big lot of something, sell out, and then that's it. There were no more Thomson Pottery Bianca dishes to be bad. Bummed, I left the store. However I was not going to be defeated so easily. I jumped online when I got home. Thanks to my friend Google, I was able to find replacements.com, a website that carries replacement pieces of all kinds of dishes, old and new. I found my pattern and discovered that I could order additonal place settings for $15 each plus shipping. That would have cost about $80. Well, the budget was a bit tight at the time so I held back on ordering the extra place settings, but I did order a replacement bowl for $2.99, plus two more for good measure. I figured extras are always good, even if I use it as a serving bowl. Three days later I had my bowls and I now had a complete set of service for 4.

Ordering the additional place settings rolled around in my head for the next couple months, but I never did seem to have the extra cash to spend, just on that. Then one day, out of the blue, I decided to do another Google search to see if I could find my dishes anywhere else. And wouldn't you know it - Macy's carries them! AND they were on sale for $40, half of the usual price. I was thrilled - how I missed that the first time around I'll never know! The dishes weren't in stores but had to be ordered online. In anticipation of the next payday, I put a set of the dishes in my online shopping cart and left them there. Amazingly, they were still on sale by the time I got paid a few days later and I happily purchased the dishes online. So now I FINALLY have my service for 8, a total of 32 pieces, plus a couple extra bowls. Total spent - $75!! AWESOME!!

But back to replacements.com. If you are fortunate enough to live near McLeansville, NC, they have 400,000 square feet of china, crystal, silver and collectibles! A dish lovers haven I'm sure!! They will even help you locate discontinued items. How cool is that!





So now I am in dish bliss, with my 32 pieces of Thomson Bianca! Welcome to the white dish club!