My price point:

I try to not spend more than $2 a plate, unless I really have a project in mind that said plate would be perfect for. Sometimes I’ll spend $3 a plate at an estate sale if it is a really fancy one and has color all over the plate (when it’s just the rim of the plate that is decorated, keep that in mind–I have a stock pile of plain white plate pieces). I am trying to sell my pieces on Etsy and at a local craft mall. Etsy has a slightly higher price point, so I can spend a bit more on a base or a special plate if I really think it is worth it.

The Hunt, Part 1: Items to Mosaic With 

1. thinner plates (salad plates, saucers are my favorite because they are much easier to break apart)
   keep in mind what colors you already have TONS of (ahem, I have a lot of blue and white now) and what colors are unique enough that you should buy them when you see them! 
   
2. mugs (the handles!)
3. jewelry: glass beads, semi-precious stones, pins/broaches, earrings (clip-on awesomeness), pendants from necklaces, ball chain items

The Hunt, Part 2: Items TO mosaic

1. wooden decor from the 80s
you know what I mean, they are covered in tea-stained gingham, moss for hair, the doll eyes and the rosy cheeks…these are some of my favorite things to “rescue” and repurpose

2. painted signs and plaques
a rectangle is a rectangle, and a lot of times these signs have nice holders/hangers already built into the backside, so it saves me a step! 

3. platters/plain plates
one of my favorite things of late is to mosaic a creature or a heart onto a plain plate or platter. I’ve used metal plates and ceramic platters. I have covered them in resin so they are still useable, or just left them as a hanging plate art-style

4. silver teapots 

5. glass bottles and bricks

6. frames (with flat surfaces)

7. smaller old windows, with or without panes
this is for glass-on-glass mosaics and the frames need to be sturdy enough to hold the weight of your tessarae you want to add

8. wooden toys/objects–including most any crosses as long as the top is flat

9. wooden or metal boxes with lids

10. flower pots (5″-10″ best)

11. birdhouses
birdhouses are kind of pricey at the craft stores, so picking one up for 99c or even $3 is better than paying $6 

The post Thrift Shop & Estate Sale Shopping Strategy appeared first on Alexis Bierman.

I started my mosaic journey by breaking plates with a hammer in a plastic IKEA bag (bad choice of material to use, the glass broke the bag pretty quickly–the recommended wrap is an old towel). I had purchased odds and ends of plates from thrift shops and enjoyed the process of breaking the plates. All along my mosaic journey has provided a really WONDERFUL stress outlet.

Finegardening.com describes this wonderful outlet as “Breaking china and tile is a cathartic yet willy-nilly process since it is hard to know how the pieces will break.” (They also have good instructions and safety notes at their site as well.)

For me that “willy-nilly” factor is a good reminder that I’m not truly in charge of anything in my life, including the crazy drama with my ex-husband. But usually I don’t think that deeply about cutting plates and just get busy. The process of cutting is very meditative for me. These days I prefer to use a tile nipper on most plates.

The “Best Quality Porcelain Tea-Set”

But, recently I bought an entire tea set still in the box with the styrofoam — pristine condition, beautiful Chinese tea set. I couldn’t resist, it had a second tag so it was a total of $1.99…come on!

Perhaps it was the lady at the Estate Sale who said “Oh, I just don’t want to know” when I told her I did mosaics that got me thinking about the “soul” of the china/plates, but alas, I was now feeling guilty with my intention to break up this tea set, and by break up, I, of course, mean more than separate…I mean BREAK up.

How I Overcame My Guilt

So, now when I buy a beautiful unbroken plate or tea set (I always buy ones with chips or cracks when I can!), I acknowledge the beauty in the piece and say thanks for providing such a cool batch of tiles for me to turn into something that is greater than the sum of its parts! At least that is my goal.

For example, here is a frame using some of the cup parts:

The post Getting Over the Guilt appeared first on Alexis Bierman.

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.

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Once upon a time, a family decided their rectangular table wasn’t right for their dining room space. “A round table would fit the space better,” they said. So they traded tables with a friend and now had a much more proportionally appropriate table. The base was even perfect for their 1950s era house.

A perfect solution?

The issue was that the table had been used in staging and was pretty beat up around the top and edges. And since one of those family members was mosaic-obsessed, of course that was where her mind wandered…

She found a vintage 1950s era table that seemed just perfect, but it was almost $800. And so began the great mosaic project of spring break 2016.

The Process

Oodles and oodles of tiles were ordered after a refresher course in how to calculate the area of a circle. There was also a table leaf, so we thought we’d calculated that rectangle as well. We may not have calculated the sides. And I may have done the calculations incorrectly because we were only half-way done with the table by the time the first order of tiles ran out.

Normally this would not be the end of the world, but a) this was our only dining table and b) our two kids (ages 6 and 9) were away for spring break with their dad and we had hoped to have a table finished upon their return. We’d set this goal both to surprise them and to avoid the mess that is kids + grout.

So we ordered more on a quick order and waited two days. Thank you fast shipping!!

My partner Mark helped me on this second phase as I was overwhelmed with the sheer size and the speed in which it needed to be finished. I’d ordered three shades of brown and two shades of grey to use among brights and speciality tiles, as similar as I could find to those in the original.

 As often happens when I finish a project, I was convinced the results were awful…

Different People Tile Differently

We had decided we didn’t want to use the regular tile spacers that floor layers use as we wanted smaller grout lines than that. But I was wishing we had when we realized our tiling wasn’t quite the same.  As often happens when I finish a project, I was convinced the results were awful and we’d just wasted about $400 (by the time the costs of the tile were added up).

And as best as I tried, cutting the tiles with my wheeled nippers didn’t produce perfect edges. They suffice, but are not my favorite part of the table! As often happens when I finish a project, I was convinced the results were awful and we’d just wasted about $400 (by the time the costs of the tile were added up).

Yet a day later, it seemed fun and unique and then I realized it would be a reminder of the fun Mark and I had working on the table. As I often say to myself, perfection looks like it came from China.

Grouting

We chose a black grout finish everything up. As I’m learning, most black grouts dry a dark grey, so that’s what we got.  I also used a grout sealant on the grout and wiped the excess of the tile per the directions. I was told it’s not necessary to seal grout on most mosaic projects, but felt like we would need all the help we could get to keep this clean given the kid-eating that would be happening (and who am I kidding? I’m just as messy/clumsy as my kids are!).

The Final Step

The kiddos arrived home from spring break and we surprised them with a finished table. Over the next month, we had a few tiles falling off the sides here and there (thinset issues) and re-adhered them with whatever glue was handy, from weldbond to some liquid nails silicone I found at the Habitat for Humanity resale store.

We lived with and loved the table for the following few months. It was really fun and went really well with the patchwork chairs we already had (see above). We got lots of compliments and felt accomplished about doing the project together.

Yet the one lingering issue was that it was hard to write on the table, especially at homework time. My nine-year-old has some sensory issues, so he, in particular, hated using it. Plates and drinks worked just fine, but I sometimes felt self-conscious about it when we had guests over that they felt like they needed to be extra careful with the table and to steady their glasses.

The Final-Final Steps:
Shoe Polish + Resin

So, to remedy the problem of the uneven surface and to keep the grout clean once and for all (yes, cleaning the grout was probably my worst complaint of the process), we used a two-part resin on top of the table. I first used black shoe polish on the grout to try and get a true dark black look. It worked! I rubbed it on with an old t-shirt and then polished the extra off the top.

NOTE: this shoe polish step really showed the “pits” in the tile. Some people hate this and spend hours with vinegar and a toothbrush taking it off. However, if you look up at the inspiration piece, I felt like this texture made it look even more authentic.

I left the shoe polish to cure for a day and went to Michael’s with Mark so we could each use a 40% coupon to purchase jars of the two-part resin. I read the instructions, but still didn’t get it quite thick enough. After setting the table on top of a bunch of flattened cardboard boxes, we poured on three coats of resin, waiting a few hours in between. The instructions recommend newspaper under your table, but I am glad we went with our guts that it might not be thick enough to protect the floors and used cardboard instead.

If you stand to the side of the table and look with your head turned you can see where the layers show a bit here and there. There are also some air bubbles, despite our using a lighter to burn off lots of them. It’s not perfect by ANY means, but it’s solid and we still love it.

Next Steps

If I choose to the perfectionist urge take over, I might sand it down and then pour one more thick coat all over it…. but right now, I’m happy with the final product!

Project Review

Project Cost: $400
table-free, tiles $400, thin-set on-hand, grout-on hand supply

Time: 10 hours for initial tiling + 3 hours for resin work

Fun Factor: meh (this was definitely a little bit tedious, although still meditative)

Would I do it again? Yes! We love the table and feel it is a great accent to our dining room

Have any questions about doing this type of project yourself? Feel free to send me an email or comment here and I’ll let you know about our experiences.

Q: what resin did you use?

A: This POUR ON product: https://www.michaels.com/envirotex-lite-pour-on-high-gloss-finish/M10178984.html

The post The Mosaic Table Project appeared first on Alexis Bierman.

I started to google for ideas and wasn’t coming up with many. Most mosaics are individual projects and fulfill an individual vision. So after some brainstorming and practice sessions, the Wedding Mosaic Kit was born as an interactive alternative to a traditional (dust-gathering!) guest book.

What need does it solve?

• Entertain guests while they’re waiting for the ceremony to begin
• Create a special, ultra-unique and customized memory of the day
• Use special pieces of broken family china or other trinkets that have no purpose except to remind you of happy times

Example #1: From Our Wedding
(with horseshoe from my grandpa’s farm)

Lessons Learned: I would have made the heart outline stronger and/or used the ball chain BEFORE I set it out for people to play with. Instead, I did that afterward. I also painted the grout of the heart a dark turquoise color (our house color) to help set off the heart shape. Because I was worried about the guitar tin box rusting, I sealed the entire piece with a two-part resin.

Example #2: Ericka’s Hearts

Lessons Learned: Ericka wanted these hearts to be color-themed, so she instructed her helpers to make sure that happened. They also decided it was best to glue the keys and earring onto the piece AFTER it was grouted so they would move vs. being fixed into the grout.

Note: the “grid” pieces are the backside of the tiles, but they make a fun texture turned upside down.

Example #3: Avery is a Peach

Lessons Learned: This shows a request for a simple and streamlined peach color palate with a mix of cut stained glass and small tiles.

How Does it Work?

You buy a 12×12 stepping stone ($2-5 dollars at a box store) and I provide the rest of the materials needed to make a permanent moment of your special day. (Note: 12×12 wedi board can be ordered as an alternative

)HOW TO HAVE AN AWESOME GROUP MOSAIC STEPPING STONE EXPERIENCE:
1. Order Kit
2. Buy plain cement stepping stone no bigger than 12×12” (or order a lighter board designed for outdoor wall hanging)
3. (optional) put our included directions sign into a frame
4. (optional) cut out and trace pattern of your choice onto the stone (or board)
5. Set out stone and supplies at your wedding (or other event)
6. It is helpful to ask one or two people to oversee the project and make sure that people a) see the opportunity to add a stone to the project and b) don’t use too much glue. 

ADDITIONAL OPTIONS
7. Pre-break any special china you’d like to use as part of your stone (this is a great way to put that broken tea cup from your grandma to use!). The kit includes other pieces of broken ceramics for you to use as well.
8. Gather any special mementos you’d like to include. Think about weather and durability when finding items (coins, keys, stones, rocks all work well)

The post The Group Project: A Wedding Memory appeared first on Alexis Bierman.

As Lou Ann Weeks describes in her pinterest for mosaic artists article, Pinterest is a treasure trove of inspiration and ways to connect with other artists. I check my Pinterest feed at least once a day and usually pin one or two mosaic pieces that I love. When I opened my Etsy shop in 2016, I started to pay more attention to the artists from Etsy as well. One of those whom I loved is a European artist that makes these glass-on-glass bottles that sell for over $200 dollars — wowzers said the newbie in me that is selling things that average around $20-50 dollars.

When I found a glass bottle at Goodwill with a drilled hole and twinkle lights already installed inside the bottle, I knew I had a project idea! Yet this was a project that haunted me. It sat on my work table just staring at me when I was looking for something new to start. “I’m going to be hard” it whispered…. but one day I was working on a light fixture for my kids’ room. I had a tube of silicone already in the glue gun. Maybe it was inspiration, maybe it was just the silicone fumes, but I decided to tackle that bottle the same night.

I wanted to use turquoise-ish colors and my stash of turquoise mixed glass also had some purple-ish things in there (I’ll blame that on my six-year-old daughter who likes to help me sort scrap glass). I ended up mixing the two palates and really liked how it came out.

gluing it on

I have done several 3-D pieces, so I knew a) I wanted to light to come through the glass so I couldn’t use axpoxy sculpt or the like. I knew I COULD use weld-bond, but that if I did I would be doing each side over the course of a few days. So I chose silicone in a tube (I think that was liquid nails clear from the Habitat for Humanity Restore, but I may have finished a GE Silicone II as recommened by my friends at FleaMarket Gardening who got me started with the gluing of glass on glass for garden flowers!).

I made a general swirl pattern with the glue and then started to place the tesserae on the bottle.

grouting

Once I was finished, I let it dry for a few days. I chose a dark gray grout and found that my gluing had not been as precise as it should have been. I lost quite a few of the odd-sized beads I’d mixed in with the glass. But I kept them, washed them off with vinegar, and later glued them into place on the bottle.

learning lessons

What I learned was that I should have glued the edges of each piece of tessera down to the glass. Not only would that have probably helped the beads as the glue would have been “fresh” with each one, but it would have avoided the ugly grout-bleed situation.

When the lamp is turned off, it looks okay, I like it sitting in my bathroom. Yet when I plug in the light, I quickly see all the unfinished grout lines that seep into the space of many of the larger pieces.

ALSO: I need to remind myself that my inspiration artist says the INSIDE of her pieces look like kaleidoscopes, not the outside. Hers are not lamps. . .

would I do it again?

For where I’m currently selling my pieces, this took a lot of effort and even if I perfected the technique I don’t know that I could get the time/cost out of the project. However, I would definitely try it again with MAC glue (which I learned about thanks to the lovely artists in the Glass-on-Glass enthusiasts group on FB) and plan to spend a few days working on it. They would make a great gift! ….and I am also worried about the heat from the non-LED (aka traditional cheap) lights that are inside the bottle. So if I made one for sale or to give away, I’d choose LED twinkle lights, perhaps even battery operated ones since they work so well now!

The post Glass On Glass: My Experiment appeared first on Alexis Bierman.

In the summer of 2016, we were in the midst of wedding planning. Despite my partner Mark’s and my agreement that we didn’t need to have a wedding to feel tethered to each other, our kids had other ideas. “But you’re not really married” our youngest would say.

So we opted to give them (and maybe for our parents too) a wedding. We planned a simple-ish backyard celebration. In South Texas. In August. Yes, it was hot. Yes, it was fun too.

One of the reasons I wanted to do it at our home was that it meant instead of paying money to rent a facility, we could buy things our home needed (a large mister fan was a great estate sale find!) and make repairs we wanted to get done anyway (painting the outside of the house, for one).

Another repair item that wasn’t going to get done before the wedding was our seriously cracked driveway. The soil here goes through lots of cycles of very dry and then very wet…causing foundation issues for many, but also taking its toll on concrete.

I didn’t find too much advice on how to mosaic a cracked driveway out there. I asked on the Facebook group Mosaic Mentoring for help. They referred me to Jim Bachor, a fabulous “guerilla” artist who fills potholes with mosaic work. After studying what he does (way above my skill level!) and spending some time in the concrete aisle at Home Depot, I was ready to attempt.

Wabi Sabi

The Japanese word “wabi sabi” is so fun to say. But it also has a fabulous, and greater, meaning: is a “concept in traditional Japanese aesthetics constituting a worldview centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection (Wikipedia).” One of the ways this is most often shown is filling a broken piece of pottery with a small amount of gold to “fix” the piece. (Here’s a cool video all about the concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmHLYhxYVjA).

So we went to town and wabi-sabi-d our driveway with turquoise and silver themed tessera I collected from a few online sources.

Adhesive: I used the premixed concrete that came in quart sized containers. This required filling some of the bigger holes first so that I could put pretty things on top…. which meant I used more than I had planned. It was easier than worrying about mixing a large batch myself, but that would certainly be the most cost-effective option.

Results: So it’s almost a year later. The driveway has held up well and we get lots of compliments on it. A few pieces (maybe 5 that I have noticed) have come loose from the cement. This may be from cars going over it at the wrong angle or just that it wasn’t pushed into the goo enough when we did it. I had help from my husband, the kids, and some of our family friends doing this over a few days, so I shall choose not to assign any blame on why pieces didn’t stick.

Recommendation: don’t use large pieces of sea glass as they are mostly what has fallen out, smaller pieces are better pieces. 

Would I do it again? Totally. I love the way this driveway says “someone artsy lives here” and that we bought ourselves a few (10?) years before we have to think about replacing the driveway. AND, it makes it easier to roll the trash and recycle cans to the curb.

The post Wabi Sabi: The Ugly Driveway Project appeared first on Alexis Bierman.

But, I have a confession: Betsy started to trade me the unsorted leftovers of her students. I suddenly had a large flat rate box full of goodies. The first time I brought a box home, I spent hours sorting them into color groups. But the second time I got a box, I kept the tiles in a random assortment. And guess what? I much more enjoyed the random, unplanned, and happy accident style that comes from working with a limited box right in front of me.

When I work with sorted colors, I do enjoy the mixed media look that comes from having different textures all together but united by color (see the brown bird below). In fact, my daughter was explaining this to her friend the other day as we were working on small projects and I thought it was the perfect way to describe how I work with solid colors: “When you do this you just pick one color and then you go crazy–just glue them down.” She’s seven, but very wise. 

I have even started ordering scraps from online vendors like Skew.biz, Mosaics by Maria (she calls her offcuts), and Murano Millefiori. I like to think about the other hands that have held these “scraps” and what projects their “brothers and sisters” have gone into. Sometimes the pieces come with cut lines or other marks that have been ignored, sometimes they are blank.

So my thanks to all of you who love to have your precise cuts–keep it up and I’ll keep using the leftovers. 

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When your mosaic addiction becomes strong enough that you need to start selling the results of your addiction, you too may want to try out selling at a craft fair.

I recently participated in the Artisans In The Garden event at a local community garden. Here are some of the lessons I learned for my next event (coming up next weekend!)

1. Do a dry run and make sure your plans for setting up and displaying will work. I had some larger pieces that didn’t hang properly from the hooks I had purchased, so I was left leaning them against a table leg. 
2. Take Plastic: I have used PayPal Here and Square (both are free to get the readers) and find them equally easy to use. But I would have lost oodles of sales if I was only taking cash.
3. Bring Shade (always): I had a tent borrowed from a friend, but I didn’t bring it because they told us it was going to be in the rain location, but when I got there, everyone was setting up outside because the rain was passing. It was hot! 
4. Invest in a cart: You’ll want to pack in and out as quickly as you can as everyone else is doing the same thing at the same time and if you were a thief, it would be a good time to grab a box of inventory! 
5. Pack well: I had a few pieces with odd parts sticking out and so I had some pieces that needed to be repaired. Some extra bubble wrap would have saved me the repair time and possible lost sales.
6. It takes a village: or at least a friend or a family member (or three) to help with set up and keep you entertained during the day. 
7. Pack a “Go Box”: I started with a list from the Merriweather Council and edited to fit my needs, pasted here:

go box items

• Business Cards (include one of these in each bag, even one per item, so that if they are given as gifts your name stays with the work)
• Quarters/Change in a Moneyholder
• Calculator (I used my phone and the square ap for the calculations: you can set the sales tax to calculate automatically)
• Sales Tax License 
• Scissors
• Shopping Bags
• Tablecloth(s)
• Strong Tape (packing, masking or duct tape) 
• Scotch Tape
• Notebook/Inventory Sheet
• Pens/Markers
• PriceTags (definitely recommend you have everything priced and marked ahead of time!)
• CC Reader + Ap (install and set up the application on your phone before you get to the event!)
• Phone Charger

additional must haves

• Table (my friend let me borrow two of her six-foot folding tables that fold in half and have handles, they were amazingly handy!)
• Stool (I forgot this one and borrowed a folding chair, but a stool is better!)
• Tent (see above!  
• Waterproof Bins (to pack your goods in!)
• Inventory! (see above for packing extra well advice)
• Cooler with at least a few bottles of water and some snacks 

The post My First Craft Show: Learning Lessons appeared first on Alexis Bierman.

And while I enjoy an adult coloring book as much as the next stressed-out mama, I’m here to tell you that creating a mosaic is like coloring on steroids (okay, I don’t think I’ve ever colored on steroids, but stay with me here). You see the real draw for most of the color-ers in this new “craze” is the meditative and calming effect that comes from focusing on choosing colors for the detailed and intricate outlined drawings. Like Sudoku, walking, or even yoga, this repetitive process helps stressed-out adults to be mindful and keep their brains in the present moment. Journalist Julie Beck likens it to walking in a labyrinth: “You just wander down the path until you’re done. It feels simultaneously like repetition and progression.[iii]”

the colors

When you’re creating a basic mosaic project, you usually start by drawing some outlines – so you get that same sense of filling in the lines that you get with coloring. But here’s the difference:  instead of crayons, markers, or colored pencils, you get to use tile and glass in amazingly gorgeous textures and colors.

enter the nippers

Now, you need to note:  these tiles are not necessarily in the shapes you need. So instead of just picking a color, you get to use these plier-like tools called “nippers” to cut the tiles. These tools create a satisfying snap each time you use them to begin to change the shape of the tiles. And with each snap, you can feel a little bit of stress waft off the top of your shoulders.

the repetition

Just like coloring an intricate adult coloring page, when you’re tiling you are looking to see how to fill in spaces and where your next move should be. This sense of being on the look-out for the next-best- move keeps your brain from worrying about whether the dog pee smell will come out of your rug or if your latest client presentation was as good as it could have been.

the pace

The nice thing about both mosaics and coloring pages is that it takes a fair bit of time to finish a project, usually a few hours.  When you plan to devote two or three hours to a project and watch it evolve into something pretty and full of color, it just feels satisfying.

the result

And guess what? When you’re done, you’ve got a lot more to show for your time than a mere beautiful coloring page for the refrigerator. You’ve got an artistic creation that is your original work. So what are you waiting for?

[i] http://www.fastcodesign.com/3056467/the-ancient-origins-of-your-obsession-with-adult-coloring-books

[ii] http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/06/health/adult-coloring-books-popularity-mental-health/

[iii] http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/11/sorry-benedict-cumberbatch-your-head-is-fine/414010/

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