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.

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. ;)

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).

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.