Crash! There goes another broken dish, making your service for eight into service for five. While there's plenty of reasons to be upset at this moment, there's no reason to waste money. A broken dish is no longer part of your set, but it's in no way trash, and neither is your service for five. It's all just an opportunity for a great project and new uses for old items.
Purchase an old metal serving tray at a flea market, yard sale, or discount store. The design doesn't matter so the uglier and cheaper the better. Then, pour a layer of thin-set mortar onto the tray. Smooth it with a serrated spreader, either one made for tile or one you make yourself by cutting notches into a piece of plastic. Then, push the broken pieces into the mortar. You can create a design with multiple broken plates or recreate your original plate design, leaving spaces between each piece. Fill these spaces with grout when the mortar dries. Colored grout adds to your design, so consider some options. Wipe the grout from the pieces with a moist sponge before it dries. Now you have an interesting serving piece, a center piece tray (try making your collage on a lazy susan), or a wall hanging that matches your place setting.
If you're looking to replace your entire place setting, consider open stock dishes. They're more expensive, but they offer the ability to add extra plates, replace broken dishes, and purchase only what you need. If you don't use saucers, don't waste money on them. Instead, add extra dinner plates for company, purchase larger cereal bowls instead of salad bowls, or mix and match styles to anticipate future mixing and growth.
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Here is a picture of my grape hyacinths. I used some broken bowls to edge the top of the rockery. Both bowls were broken but a good half section was still whole so I leaned them up against the plants in the rockery making it look like they were growing out of the bowls.
