I’ve been doing mosaic art and crafts for more than two years now. It’s been rewarding in many ways beyond what I could have imagined and it would be only natural for the BUG to be infectious to the people closest to me. In this case my six year old son Renardus.

Until recently I haven’t been very keen on giving my children free reign in my small mosaic workspace, but since the December holidays were so long and there are only so many activities to do before boredom sets in, I bought each child a ‘piggy bank’ to decorate as they wanted. (Hopefully they will be put to good use sometime soon.)

My daughter (who’s attention span is almost 10 minutes) opted for paints, but my son decided to be daring this time and asked if he could mosaic his moneybox. He used mosaic river glass tiles cut into quarters and did each section with a different pattern or picture. Initially he would only use the ready cut tiles, but as his confidence grew he even hogged my mosaic tile cutter (under strict supervision of course).

Mosaic artist at work

Here are some pictures of the completed moneybox.

Moneybox

Car

Samurai

Robot

The samurai and robot mosaics are his favorites because he put a  lot more thought into them. Sometimes when I’m working on a mosaic project he’ll come to me and say “Mom, someday I’m going to be a mosaic artist just like the people in Italy”.

My mother lives in a shoebox sized garden flat and being the avid gardener that she is, she decided to grow her garden in pots. Roses and Gerbera daisies give colour to an otherwise dull space.  So I thought a succulent in a mosaic pot would be a nice addition to the pot paradise. It doesn’t need a lot of water and the mosaic pot with white daisies and green crazy paving background adds colour to the garden collection.

Mosaic terracotta pot

I used white river glass tiles and yellow glass tiles for the daisies and different shades of green river glass tiles for the background of the pot.  I used a mosaic nipper to cut the delicate petals of the flowers as it enables one to cut the tiles more intricately. The pot is 11cm high and 10,3cm in diameter.  A collection of these on a shelf will make any dull wall come alive.

Since the start of the recession almost two years ago I decided it would be cheaper and much more personal to make my family and friends’ gifts, as every gift is a part of you that you give to someone special.

My 3 year old daughter recently asked me to mosaic something for her.

She loves to have tea parties and has quite a collection of porcelain tea sets. So I decided to make her a small mosaic rainbow tray with glitter bubbles as a surprise.  I did the seven colours of the rainbow using vitreous glass tiles in a flowing design with three floating glitter bubbles. The design has an airy feel to it which adds to the playfulness of the whole idea.

Needless to say, my little girl has already had tons of fun with her new tea tray.

Mosaic Rainbow tea tray

Mosaic rainbow tray

My mother in law celebrated her birthday last week so I decided to make her a nice practical present.

I recycled an old paper towel holder, that had seen better days  (I knew it would come in handy some day), and attached six medium sized brass plated hooks to the front. I sometimes refer to my mosaic books for ideas and inspiration and decided to use a plain yet elegant border around the edge.

Mosaic Key Hook

In mosaic you can use so many different materials that it is quite difficult to decide what type of tiles to use. I mostly use vitreous glass tiles as the colours are so rich and the range is very wide. Here I used opal gold mosaic tile for the circles and dark brown mosaic tile with streaks of copper and gold for the winding line. For the background I used cream coloured mosaic tiles with streaks of brown and copper which accentuates the border.

The sides were painted with dark brown wood sealer and the light gray grout rounds the mosaic piece off perfectly.

This week I am doing some preparation on the small mosaic trays.

Here are some new designs in progress…

Circle tray

Swirl tray

I’m quite excited to see the end result…

The mosaic barn owl is finally finished!

Mosaic Barn owl

This picture of a barn owl in flight has been the most challenging mosaic I’ve had to make so far…hopefully there will be plenty more mosaic commissions in the not so distant future.

Here are some of the photos of the mosaic barn owl commission in progress. It was inspired by a mosaic at a local shopping center.

Left wing

The left wing was completed during last week…

Tail

the tail came into being on Sunday afternoon…

Right wing

the right wing was completed on Monday afternoon, but still had a lot of work before the deadline on Thursday.

Finally on Thursday evening at 6 o’clock the grouting process started and finished an hour later…

Grouting

Wow, what an amazing adventure this was. From starting with the drawing, to planning the colour palette, to selecting the mosaic tiles and the execution.

The next step…THE BIG REVEAL…

Sitting on a Sunday morning…placing, cutting,

Cutting tiles

sticking…

Sticking tiles

slowly but surely making progress with the latest mosaic project.

This week I’ve been doing some prep work for my next mosaic commission.  I’m very excited about the colour scheme! Some of the tiles have gold streaks and there is also a charcoal opal tile for some accent.

I won’t reveal too much right now, but will post the finished piece shortly.

The mosaic wine tray is finally finished!

Wine red mosaic riverglass tiles were used for the grapes and two shades of green mosaic opal riverglass tile were used for the leaves.

The dark grout accentuates the design.

Wine tray