The Old-School Kitchen Accessory With So Much Charm To Look For At The Thrift Store

If you're looking to add some nostalgia to your kitchen and want to find usable items that can add a bit of the '50s to your space, we found some dishes worth keeping an eye out for. Bring back the 1950s in your kitchen with melamine dishes which became popular in the '40s and '50s. Melamine, a type of hard plastic, was invented in the mid-1800s, but it wasn't until the 1940s that we started using it to make common household items. One of the most popular ways it entered our kitchens was as stackable plates and cups, often found in charming picnic collections. It's the melamine picnicware that's back in style as a kitchen accessory, so keep your eye out at the thrift store.

The old-school melamine picnic basket you'll want to be on the lookout for comes in a briefcase-looking container that has legs that pop out to turn it into a table. While it's not the basic picnic basket one might imagine, it does the job with style. It comes with plates in a couple of sizes, cups, utensils, salt and pepper shakers, a couple of thermoses for drinks or soup, and space to add dishes to carry your food. Even the utensils were made from melamine. Just because you find melamine on a shelf at the thrift store doesn't mean it's vintage. Melamine dishes and picnic baskets are still in production today. What makes melamine picnic sets worth investing in? The lightweight material of these dishes makes them easy to travel with, for one. They're also lighter and more durable than the stoneware which has become so popular lately.

While there is a chance you can find a set of melamine dishes from a picnic set still in their original packaging, finding a complete set could become your holy grail. A search for melamine picnic sets on eBay and Etsy yielded only plates and cups or new picnic sets that are not melamine. You can find complete plate and cup sets, however, which would be great for replacing missing items in a picnic set you already own or for building one up yourself.

The issue is that plastic and melamine can be mistaken for one another, even though they aren't exactly the same. Melamine pieces will be a little heavier and thicker than plastic dishes. Old plastic dinnerware may also show more wear and tear than their melamine counterparts. If you see a melted spot on the dish, it is probably plastic, since melamine takes a lot to melt. It could be this ability to withstand the test of time that is bringing these vintage kitchen accessories into style, as well as the nostalgic decor trend that is bringing back items from decades past. Melamine dinnerware comes in many colors and designs. The shapes had a mid-century modern aesthetic and the colors were predominantly pastels, though you can find vintage pieces with cute floral or gingham patterns.