Recently I found an entire set of dishes that I couldn’t pass up. I usually steer clear of sets of dishes as even the Goodwill employees know that a full set of china is something special. However, this was closer to earthen-ware and not fine porcelain. It was also stained with years of coffee use and perhaps dishwashing as some crackle had come through.
The Thought Process
Did I really need THAT much tile? Would my hands survive that much nipping? Would I break the nipper wheels before I got through?
It became a dare. I bought the $19.99 set of china (along with several more things for mosaicing and to be mosaiced–see my thrift shop shopping strategy).
It took me two days to get it all cut up. I filled almost an entire brown grocery bag with the non-colored parts of the plates.
Even with all of the plain sections going into my brown bag, I was able to fill a gallon size ziploc bag with floral tiles. This kind of old dishware–whatever it’s called–cuts like butter, so I was thankful for that one saving grace!
Now, my challenge is to find something for all that floral tile!
Uniform Size or Not?
I decided (after having bought some pre-cut plates on Etsy as a model) that I wanted most of the tile to be consistently-ish sized. However, every so often, I chose to keep an entire flower whole so that I would have options when I started to work with the tiles (and maybe because my hands were starting to get tired?!).
The Leftovers
When I started mosaicing, I used any ol’ tile or plate that I could find. So in that spirit of reuse, I have been saving a lot of leftover pieces. When I wanted red mug handles for skillet heads, I didn’t want to use the rest of the mugs because the mug walls were so thick. So I have a big batch of those in a basket and I haven’t touched them yet.
I’ve used some of the leftovers as “drainage rocks” in flower pots, but I’m still on the lookout for some other way to use it.
How do you use your leftovers?
What is Pique Assiette Anyway?
As I said, I’ve always used old plates and stuff in my mosaics, so I didn’t really know any other way to do it! However, once I became immersed in the online world of Facebook groups, I discovered a term of the style of mosaics I was doing. In addition to multi-media mosaic, I was using recycled china, which made them pique assiette work.
The term comes from the french for thief or scoundrel and was used to describe an eccentric outsider art house covered in broken dishes around the 1930s. You can read more about the history and use of the term over on The Joy of Shards, a UK blog.
