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...)

Back in business

Hi! Finally, something craft-related to blog about!

Yes, I know it’s still summer, and there’s paddling and camping to be done, and hot traffic to be sat in, and sweaty brows to be mopped. But lately I’ve realized that the only piles of homeless stuff still sitting around cluttering up our new condo are my craft supplies. And damn it, they need a home! I have boxes of tiles and glass and tools, and they’re just sitting there TAUNTING me! And I’ve waited a long time for a permanent home for my craft stuff, and a user-friendly craft station that doesn’t have to be disassembled whenever we want to eat a meal. So damn it, I’m saying “screw you” to the 15,000-word essay I’m supposed to be copy editing on Conrad Black right now and putting the finishing touches on my new CRAFT STATION!!!!! Yay! Screw Conrad!




So, last week I did a weeknight run to IKEA and bought two simple little pine bedside tables for $20 each and stacked them on top of each other and screwed them together. They make for lots of perfect storage, with a little drawer area and three shelves for tools and tiles. And I bought a desk tabletop that matches our bookcases for $30. So one end of the desk is supported by the stacked bedside tables and one end is supported by our inset front windowsill, with another little shelf that used to be our bathroom medicine cabinet. Reduce, reuse, baby, so I sawed about 8 inches off it, screwed it back together, laid it on its side in the windowsill, and lo and behold if it wasn’t the PERFECT size and height to support the other end of the desktop. So there’s even storage underneath the desk in the windowsill—perfect little nooks for paper and crafty scissors. EEEEEEE!! Can you feel my excitement?!

And what did I do next? I went to MacFab, a great fabric store, and bought a piece of gorgeous fabric I’ve been lusting after for months. And I sewed a nice little double-sided panel to cover the craft shelves. It looks great with the colours in the living room, and when we get the new beautiful hardwood floor, omigod I think I’m going to pass out it will look so good.

Oh, and there’s more! Then I went to Canadian Tire and bought some little hooks, screwed them to the outside of the shelves and hung my most-used mosaic tools on them. Geez, can you tell I’ve been reading a lot of Blueprint and ReadyMade magazines? Ack! I love it, and it’s so adorable! Can’t wait to make something!

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!

This just in!

Stacey was sick this weekend, but she somehow managed to send me these shots of the mosaic I made her for Christmas. She has handily mounted it on her kitchen wall, where it looks so fabulous I can’t stand it! When I made the mosaic, I had no idea it would match her kitchen so perfectly—serendipity!

Stacey’s description of her illness made me laugh so heartily I must reprint it here: “Hey, I was supposed to work today, but instead am at home puking and having "loose stools" as we refer to them in the healthcare world--likely a bug i picked up in that very same healthcare world! ugh!”

My ultra-talented little polymath sister also sent me the following photos she took. The images in the e-mail were all called “aroundtown.033.jpg,” “aroundtown.032.jpg,” etc. So, in honour of her fledgling photography career, I present to you the “Around Town” series, by Stacey (she’s so damn doo-doo-doo-I-can- do-anything-and-make-it-look-easy, I doubt she even knows she’s shot a very professional and photographerly series).








I actually find the “Around Town” moniker strangely hilarious and cute. This may be because I’ve recently discovered “Cat Town.” You really shouldn’t check it out unless you’re alone or not worried about being judged by those around you. And if you have any liquid in your mouth, it will surely be shot out of your nostrils. Beware.

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.

Table of holy matrimony

This is a table I made as a wedding present for Jenn and Roy. It was made using the 'indirect method,' which is what you use when you want a completely flat surface. Rather than glue the tiles face-up onto the tabletop, you glue the tiles upside-down onto a piece of heavy brown paper. Then you grout the bottom of the tiles while they're still upside down on the paper. Then, while the grout is still wet, you flip the mosaic right side up and lay it in a bed of adhesive on the board that will be the tabletop surface. Next, you wet the brown paper and peel it off. Then you re-grout from the front. Voila--a perfect, flat surface.

This technique has been in use since mosaic's invention hundreds of years ago. The stupendous mosaic floors you can see in churches and villas around the world were made using the indirect method. It's amazing, because the artist was basically working backwards and upside down, placing each tile wrong-side-up onto a temporary surface. This technique has the huge advantage of letting the artist work off-site, and then bring the panels to be installed as they're finished. But as a disadvantage, the poor bugger can't even see his mosaic until it's installed right-side-up!

Check out the 'Mosaics so beautiful they make me teary' link on the right hand side for some incredible indirect mosaics. Sigh.

Reincarnation

Yes, here are Bari's beautiful bathroom tiles again—in a cutting board I made Stacey for Christmas. Paul had a cool idea: instead of storing it somewhere out of sight when they're not using it, he suggested hanging it on the kitchen wall. I love this idea! And it'll look great in their kitchen.

Care and feeding: for my cutting boards and any other wood-based mosaics, never dunk them in the sink to clean them. This will cause the wood to expand or warp and can crack the grout and make the tiles pop off. Just wipe with a damp cloth. I did put a sealant on the grout, so it shouldn't absorb stains from food or wine, but just to be safe, clean up any spills before you put it away. I know...nag, nag, nag. ;)

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.

Aladdin's lamp

Prototype Syndrome Case #2: This was the first lamp I made, and it was Cheryl’s Christmas present last year (geez, I make Cheryl a lot of stuff! I guess you could say she’s my patron). It is made of glass mosaic tiles on an IKEA glass lamp base. When the lamp is turned off, the tiles look dark purple (they have gold veins in them. they’re delicious) and they look all sparkly nestled in the grey grout. But when the lamp is turned on, the tiles have a reddish tinge to them and the blue backing on the gold tiles shines through, and it looks sort of eerie—kind of like a cave. It was tricky to get the grout just right, and thick enough that the light from inside can’t shine through. It’s a weird piece, but so is Cheryl.

A mosaic quilt table mat? Wha?

And this is a table mat I made for David. It looks nice on his dark-wood dining table. The design is based on a quilt square. It's made of glass mosaic tiles with tiny accent squares of real gold, gold, gold. It's done on a piece of plywood, which I did not have to cut by hand. If I were to attempt a quilt square design again, I would put some sort of contrasting-colour border between the squares to delineate them and make them look more like individual squares, rather than a funny design that got out of control. But it looks very professional: nice grout job, good colours, red wine-repelling (very useful at David's house).

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.

The Prototype Syndrome

Cheryl can tell you that usually the first time I attempt to make something, it turns out the best. I'm calling this the Prototype Syndrome. And Cheryl can model for you a very nice prototype hat, wrap and shoulder bag I made. I appreciate her guinea piggedness.

This was the first time I used smashed-up plates in a mosaic, and my first attempt at a bowl. It's one of my very favourite pieces; I still have it.

So if you want a really nice piece, just ask me to make something I haven't attempted before! It'll turn out nice for sure!

Oooohhh! Exhibit #1

I made this trivet/serving platter as a gift for Bari to thank her for the gorgeous retro tiles she gave me (one of which is in the centre of the trivet). Her cottage bathroom is tiled in them and she had been storing two baskets of extra tiles (for how long?!) just in case she needed them. It has square rubber feet so it's easy to get your fingers underneath to pick it up, and it won't scratch your table. I like it a lot.