Thanksgiving craftiness

As you saw last week, I started working on mosaicking our bedside tables. Well, after my visiting in-laws left yesterday afternoon, I dove right into grouting. As usual, I can never wait to see what a piece looks like when it's grouted.




So here they are! I think the grout colour looks great. It was Chad's idea. I was planning to do a very dark brown, so the top would look very uniform, with the gold of the tiles winking out from the dark grout. But Chad thought the little tables might end up looking like two black holes in our bedroom. And he was absolutely right. So I picked a sandy coloured grout, which turned out to match the colour of the wooden legs perfectly.

So this morning when we got up, I gave them a quick polish with some vinegar and put them beside the bed. They look all sparkly and nice, and they'll look even better when our bedroom isn't baby blue anymore.

And now when we set a glass down on them, we get a 'clink' instead of a 'thunk.' Very satisfying, for some reason.

I love you, IKEA. No! I hate you! No, I love you...

In other 'I guess I'll just make it myself...' news are our new bedside tables! I bought two cute little simple bedside tables from IKEA (hey, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em). I think they were about $30 each. They have a nice solid pine top and legs, with a little magazine shelf underneath.

I've had this plan in my brain for a while. I fell in love with some gorgeous tiles at my mosaic store. They are glass mosaic tiles, and they are the colour of Coca-Cola, with gold swirls throughout. Yes, gold, gold, gold. (Miss you, Cheryl! Call me!) And Stacey, no, you cannot eat them.

So last weekend I bought a few sheets of them. They come in sheets of 225 tiles, which is one square foot. And of course the tabletops aren't one square foot, so I had to cut up the sheets and fit them together to fit the tabletop. Last night I glued them down onto the tabletop in a bed of tile adhesive. I don't work with tile adhesive often, and it's not my favourite. It smells fume-y, and if you use too much, it squirts up between the tiles and you have to dig it out.

Today, after the adhesive had dried for a while, I moistened the paper backing and peeled it off. This type of mosaic method is called the indirect method, where you
initially glue the tiles upside-down onto paper, then lay the tiles face-down in the adhesive. Then you wait. Then you get to moisten the paper and reveal the mosaic, which is very exciting! Does it suck?? Is it great?? You're about to find out!!


Other than the extra adhesive I'll have to dig out, the table looks FABULOUS! Very luxe. Very not-really-my-style, but I just love it anyway. So, I just have to grout it, which will probably happen soon, because Chad misses having somewhere to keep his slippers and glass of water. And I may stain the legs, too, but I'm not sure yet.

The lesson here: you can almost always make something nicer yourself! Up yours, IKEA! (But I love you....don't hate me...)

Pat, pat, pat myself on the back

If you scroll down, you’ll see the beginnings of this cutting board I made for my colleague Lisa’s mom. Here are a couple shots of the completed piece—looking even better in Lisa’s cool kitchen. Um, Lisa? Maybe you should have just kept it! I just love this piece, love it. It has rubber feet and a hook on the back, so it can be hung on the wall when not in use. I love the pattern, and I love the colours. I think a series in the same pattern would look nice—I’m thinking of doing one in different colours for our new place.

I suspect mosaicking will be kind of scarce over the summer months. We tend to be away a lot, plus our condo has CARPET everywhere. Not exactly ideal for clipping little pieces of glass. But geez, I miss it so much I’ll probably do some anyway. We have two little wooden bedside tables (two!! Our new bedroom has space for Chad and I to BOTH have a bedside table! Unbelievable!) from IKEA whose tops I’m going to mosaic, and I can’t see myself being able to wait too long to start that project, so stay tuned.

What's cookin' in the kitchen?

A trivet for my colleague Lisa’s mom. This little project came at a perfect time. After finishing the dragon a few weeks ago, I wanted to start something else. Something small but not too small—something that I could finish before we move.

I’m kinda in love with this little piece. The design is actually a quilt square design—it looks like a square of parquet flooring. Originally, each of the four squares was divided into four equal strips. And when I started laying the tiles, the four equal strips just looked too boring (like parquet!). So I decided to mix it up with strips of different widths, and different sizes of tile pieces. Some are whole, some halves, some quarters. I should be able to finish gluing the tiles tonight, and grout it by the end of the week. Then it’ll get some rubber feet and a hook, so Lisa’s mom can hang it if she wants (a lovely idea).

Thanks for the job, Lisa!


UPDATE!!
I finished laying the tiles last night (see photo above). Now I'm REALLY in love with this little piece! I'm already planning to do a series of smaller squares for myself, in cool colours, to hang together on a wall. I just love the different squares going in different directions. I wasn't sure how I was going to finish the edges. I've decided to tile them, too, so the edges will be nice and smooth when grouted. Might not be done as soon as I thought—edges take a while because you can only do one edge at a time, then you have to let it dry. But as usual, I'm anxious to see it done!

Oh, sorry. I thought you said those pants didn't fit you anymore...

so I made them into more cat beds!! Chad and I were starting to clean out our closets for our move next month. He came across two pairs of pants with dangerously thin crotch areas (cycling is very hard on pants). To save any embarrassing potential pant crotch failure, we decided to decommission this pair of cords and pair of jeans.

I still had more leftover fleece from Christmas presents, so rather than move it, I stuffed the new cat beds with it. Each pant leg made one bed, so I ended up with four pant-beds (funny! a pant-bed!), and one more made of an old button-down Gap shirt. And, as you can see above, I'm left with two very hot pairs of '70s-style cutoffs, which I'll be wearing this summer (not on your life).

The new beds will be donated to the Toronto Humane Society again. The Humane Society does pretty well by us--Chad and I are monthly donors, and we're always dropping off old towels or blankets, which they use for the animals. In fact, they have a wish list of stuff they need. And you can always give me your clothing cast-offs and I'll stitch them into a snuggly bed. It's a good way to assuage your guilty consumptive soul.

A teaser

I took Friday off work to recover from the real estate drama earlier this week. As soon as Chad left for work, I grouted the dragon mosaic I've been working on. He's completely done now, and polished up and looking quite fabulous. I need to take a good photo in some natural light, which only occurs when I'm at work, nowadays. So, I'll post a good photo of the completed mosaic as soon as I can. For now, use your imagination. Grouting is so much fun.

I had a fairly considerable bawl-o-rama on Chad's shoulder when it sank in that we'll actually be leaving this apartment, with all its wonderful memories. But then, there was the day back in December when the landlord was re-cementing a chunk of the foundation in the basement apartment, and our apartment filled with billowing clouds of concrete dust. We had to plug up all the heating vents with books, magazines, pillows--anything that was handy. And then last year there were the crazy main-floor neighbours who secretly hated us, but were sweet to our faces, then locked us out of the house accidentally-on-purpose more than once. Assholes. But I won't miss having to turn off the coffee maker to blow-dry my hair (same breaker=blown fuses=having to bother the basement neighbour to reset the fuse box). And I won't miss certain aspects of renting, but I'll sure as hell miss my beautiful, sunny Crafty Kitchen, and our kayaks in the hallway and on the stairs. But it's the beginning of a new era, with new memories, and maybe a Crafty Nook.

Puff ain't got nothin' on this guy

Well, well. So here we are, almost finished. I laid the last tile fragment tonight. The area around and between his legs was really, really tricky. Lots of tweezer work. And he still needs an eye. I'm going to use an Italian millefiore, a little blown-glass bead--I just need to make a trip to the bead shops on Queen Street.

So now the glue needs to dry, and then I can grout. And I never really know what a piece is going to look like until it's grouted. Grouting can really make or break a piece, and I'd hate to $@*&?$! him up now. I'm thinking a light grey grout. My first impulse was to use a sandy colour, which would make the background all blend together, and make the dragon really stand out, but I really want his body to look dark, and a light sandy colour would break him up too much. So I'm going to use a mid-grey grout. Hopefully it will look OK with the background--I'm planning to test it first on a spare piece of wood with some of the background tiles stuck to it.

Stay tuned. Grouting is quite labour- and time-intensive. It consumes the whole kitchen--so no eating. I may do it this weekend. We'll see. Very excited.

Well hello there, handsome

This guy is my current project. Chad is always telling me to try a mosaic of animals or people, and I always say no, it's too hard. And it is hard...much harder than geometric designs. Almost every piece is cut to fill a particular space. The dragon's wings are done in tiny, tiny triangular pieces of tile; I was trying to make them look like feathers. I've been using my tweezers to place them. And there's a large glass of wine just outside the photo above (I had to crop it), which wasn't helping with the tile placement.

I'm stumped on what colour to use for his feet. Seems like maybe they should be green, but he's pretty regal looking, and green lizard feet just don't seem to suit him. And I'm trying to decide how to do the border--maybe red and purple glass gems. And I have some beautiful gold I want to use. Anyway, I'm quite enjoying working on him. As usual, I can't wait to grout and see what it looks like when it's done.


My handsome dragon is based (copied, actually) on a British artist's design for a series of tiles, shown above. I found an image of the tiles in a book, and I just love the dragon and his pals. (I'll post the artist's name as soon as I can find the page from that book! Hopefully she won't read my blog!)

Nice rack(s)

And now, two key racks! They're small and fun to make--and perfect for that guy who has, like, four pairs of Oakley sunglasses and needs a place to hang them in their little cloth bags (you know who you are).

The top one is made with cinca ceramic tiles, which have a very traditional look and come in earthy colours. I used a glossy spray to brighten it up a bit.

The bottom one is made with stained glass scraps. I love stained glass.

Jingle bells

These are a few mirrors I made for Christmas presents this year. They're about six by six, and an inch and a half thick, with copper edging. They're made with mosaic tiles, which are 3/4 inch by 3/4 inch, and here I've cut them into smaller pieces. I started a few similar mirrors today using stained glass. They're not quite finished, but they're beautiful already. Stained glass is great to work with—it comes in so many colours and textures, and you get such a nice, flat surface. I'll post pictures when they're finished.

Three's company

I made this trio of mirrors as a wedding present. They're about six inches by six inches, and about an inch and a half thick, with thin copper around the edges. They look lovely hanging in a group.

Just to give you a little inside track on some of the weird stuff that happens in the Crafty Kitchen: I had to saw the wood by hand on the kitchen table, using a mitre box and a little hacksaw. Not exactly ideal, but you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might like to have, right? They turned out nicely anyway.