Tuesday, April 19, 2011

A mosaic of ideas

I love making mosaics. Gaudi is my hero. I made my first mosaic in high school while my parents were away. I know, most kids throw wild parties while their parents are out of town, yet I decided to mosaic the wall of my bedroom. Probably not the best surface to start with. In retrospect, a wild party might have cost me less money since I had to pay to have the drywall replaced and the wallpaper stripped. Perhaps learning how to mosaic before actually making one would have been the brighter idea. But that just isn't how I do things. I get an idea, then I execute and then, once every possible thing that could have gone wrong goes wrong, I decide to crack open a book and see how it is supposed to be done.

Nevertheless, I eventually figured it out and now I make and sell mosaics and also teach children how to do them. Here are a few of my personal mosaics:

letter "J" custom made for a baby room
stained glass mirror I made for Madelyn's room
stained glass mosaic table


Here are a few of the mosaics I have done with ten year olds:


grouting with ten year olds

cleaning and finishing the mosaic


Kids' adding paint to the grout to make their own custom color




So then I started thinking. I wish I could do mosaics with my young kids, but I don't want them to look mediocre or juvenile. I also don't want them to cut their hands on glass, but would love to make the kind that are asymmetrical or "broken" looking. I scoured the web and found brilliance! This is not only something I would do with my kids, but something I would make and be very, very proud of! Great job, Amanda!  Amanda of www.craftsbyamanda.com used left-over easter eggs to make a gorgeous vase.
As a mosaicist, I wish I would have thought of this - how beautiful! Here it is:



Find the tutorial on www.craftsbyamanda.com









Thanks for letting us post your idea, Amanda! www.craftsbyamanda.com

2 comments:

  1. You did WHAT while we were away? We thought you were having a wild party!

    ReplyDelete
  2. great idea. love your blob

    ReplyDelete