Stacking Mixing Dishes

I find regular moulded palettes a trial to use, the wells in them are usually too small and because 6-8 wells are all joined in one palette that makes them too large to hold and awkward to pack. I am talking about this kind of thing.. 

They are usually super cheap, but I just don't like them much. Also a bit of a pain to clean out, again as the little wells are quite small. 

I wanted something with bigger wells, but not bigger overall, something that was easy to take with me to demos. I saw someone using little porcelain dishes and thought these would be perfect. I believe their original use is for ink, rather than paint.. but I liked them.. 

How cute would these be stacked up on a desk, I like the vintage feel of them.

But.. I have never actually seen them anywhere near me for sale, and even if I saw them I doubt if I could afford them, so how could I get something similar for a fraction of the price?

In town we have a general all purpose kind of store,{Wilkinsons} that has these acrylic coasters/feet for sale at just 55p each. In the past I have only ever seen these in brown, they go under the feet of wooden furniture. 

I spotted these clear ones, there were 2 sizes, these are the larger ones and measure 2.5inches across. 

They might work really well I thought, so I bought a few to try. Of course being clear, whatever you have them stood on shows through, making it hard to see the paint colours you have put inside.  So I turned each one over and painted the underside with 2 coats of white paint, followed by 2 thin coats of matte gel to seal them and stop the paint scratching off. 

Now when I turned them the right way they had a white bottom...{ if I had painted white inside the pots that would have come off whenever I cleaned the inside}

Now I can use them for watercolour paints and for acrylics and for inks and they wipe clean. 

They stack up nice and neat, take up hardly any room and they are small enough to slot a couple into my large pencil case to take with me on demos while still giving me a large enough area for paint. Very handy when you don't want to have blobs of paint all over the demo table. 

ok, so they are acrylic and not porcelain, and they don't look as cute, but for 55p each they do a great job as little mixing dishes. I only have tiny hands, and one of these nestles neatly in the palm of my hand making it really comfortable to use. 

if you are a beader, these, or even the smaller ones, would be perfect little sorting dishes for your beads. 

Darcy x