A Brown Explodey Flower (3×3)

Hmmmm……. It’s been a while – eh?

I spent a week in Michigan teaching glass stuff this summer. That was fun. Inbetween questions, instead of staring at the backs of people’s heads or something, I decided to keep my hands busy. Also, I needed some glued glass to demonstrate “how to grout” without demo-ing on someone else’s work. The next few posts are of the little things I finished while teaching.



4″x4″ mosaiced tile

I’m not sure, yet, whether to turn these in to coasters or decorative wall hangings.

Here’s what I’ve been complaining about working on the last few weeks. Done. Finally. This took way longer than tiling the front porch with slate. The front porch was 54 sq ft, this back one is 96…. but it took far more than twice the amount of time/effort/materials. Luckily, it’s done. Just before winter. wonderful. Keep your fingers crossed that the workmanship is solid enough to withstand the freeze-thaw-freeze-thaw that is Wisconsin winter…. I guess my new project next spring might be “Learn how to repair tile flooring” which isn’t necessarily a bad skill to have…

I think I need to arrange a porch-warming party in the next month or so…. perhaps with some grilled food and a bonfire… hmmmm….

Before:

After:

This was made at the same time as the tiled bench… but this piece is not (yet) having the same issues as the bench in the previous post. I *think* that that is because this is *not* a curved surface…. maybe.

A tiled bench

The bench pre-tiles….

The tiles on the counter….

Tiles are attached w/ thin-set…

The next day is grout…

After cleaning off the grout…

unfortunately…. the bench is curved and that is leading to structural integrity issues… I just got an update today, and I hear that the grout is cracking and there’s at least 1 loose tile 🙁

Glass mosaic tiles

Three more tiles to hang around the mirror in my bathroom… which brings us to a total of 5 so far…. at this rate I will be done with that decorative project in….. 18 months?

What to do with spare watercolors?

Why cut them up and glue them on to previously ugly cards, of course!

(previously these cards had 2 stylized/cartoon-y critters that vaguely resembled cats underneath some of the strategically placed pieces of watercolored paper)

Coasters – coreopsis

These are coreopsis from Birds & Bloom magazine. Birds & Bloom is one of my favorites to use, as you will see later this week when I post more pictures of coasters & light switch covers. Incidentally, I have coresopsis like the ones on the lower left in my yard. I never knew they came in colors other than yellow – I think I may go get some red & pink ones in the spring 🙂

4 Coasters

All four are paintings by Malva – images found in an Art & Antiques magazine I picked up while in Chicago visitng SOFA 2 weeks ago.