My Newest Mosaic

I have been working on a new mosaic for some time now as I couldn't quite figure out what I wanted to do with the background. 

The mosaic is made of different patterned dishes that I cut to make the pinwheels and then added various accents such as half marbles, glass tiles and ceramics.

I knew the theme would be blue because I had so many pretty dishes with blue in them, but trying to decide whether to continue the blue theme or just use white took a while to decide.
As you can see, I chose the baby blue glass tiles and a soft custom made lavender grout for the backgound. I am happy with the affect.  Now if I could just get a good photo.

Custom Mosaic Continued

I have started piecing the tiles to fill in around the main design.  This takes time and patience as you want to get them as close together as possible and there are lots of curves to go around.

I found some fun bright yellow dishes with a royal blue pattern and I thought it would be the perfect thing to go with this mosaic.  I used them in the fan design at the lower left side.  They are rather thick dishes and would be too much of a variance in height for many of the tiles, but it works when you have the gems butted up against them.

The photo above is upside down so I could work on filling in the top.  I decided to glue what I have down and let my husband get the half plate embedded on the bottom (for a shelf).  He will need to cut out the area I have sketched in and set the rough edge of the plate down inside the wood.  He will then fill in any areas with wood glue and let dry overnight.

Next my husband will sand down the glue so that it's flush with the mosaic front and back.
After that I can finish it up and see what my customer thinks before I grout.  At this point I can still change things around a bit.  Hopefully this will be good to go.

The dish tiles on the bottom of this photo are very similar in color but have a completely different design.  One has light blue polka dots against a darker blue and one has light blue swirlys against a darker blue background.  It keeps the continuity and flow but creates more interest.

I'll show you the little "shelf"  once it's dry and sanded.

Until Next Time. :)

Ocean Deep-My Newest Mosaic

A few weeks back I showed you my WIPs on this newest ocean-themed mosaic.

I ended up changing a few things around as the rectangular mirror I had in there to begin with was making the piece entirely too heavy. I opted for a 12" round, beveled mirror which actually gave me more room to put the design.

This is my interpretation of things found deep in the ocean from the little crab to the sand dollar. I also added a broken pottery vase and some "sea leaves".

The brown and blue with white beach pottery came from Australia and is just perfect for this theme.

It took me a long time to complete this one but I really enjoyed making it.

Grout Picked for New Mosaic

Experimenting can be fun but also very time consuming. After I so carefully grouted the edges in white I still had to let it dry and pick out the overflow with a toothpick as you can see in this picture all along the border tiles.

Another time I will plan this in advance and make a more definite border to hold the grout.


I didn't want to do a huge area with the black grout powder so here is what my experiment looked like. It's hard to tell in this small shot, but it was looking too busy for me along with the edges done in white.

In this photo I tried the white powder and feel the overall affect is better. It keeps the body of the mirror more solid and the edges more "lacey". The dishes have enough colors to carry off the white in my opinion.

I will be finishing it today and will have pictures for you.

I also just finished a cute metal tray that I will put up on my next post. I would love any comments as to the tags I might use.

Sunflower in a Pot Mosaic Mirror

This is my newest piece called "Sunflower". The center of the flower is actually a huge dangling earring that I thought would look great with the black and white edging. I hand painted the sunflower petals and used a real vase that I cut in half for the pot.
I was thinking of my daughter when I made this as it would be a great gift for someone's daughter. It's fun, colorful, and cheery.