Thursday, April 30, 2009

Making a Mosaic Table Top

Pier I Imports has some attractive outdoor tables with mosaic tops. Depending on size, the prices range from $99 to $399. After some discussion about a possible purchase of one of these pricey tables, DH suggested we "recycle" two of our table tops. He encouraged me to make a mosaic pattern atop each table and to do it myself. That way, the pocketbook would barely be impacted, and the back patio would have a new look without purchasing a ready made item.

After some internet research, including this site on E-How and here at Homemade Simple, I decided to take the bait and try to make at least one mosaic table top. (Am aiming for a bigger piece, but learning on a small wooden circle...)

This is where I began the project:

1) Finding a design: often, coloring book pages for children have simple lines relating to a particular motif. The simpler the design, the easier it is to fill in the design with tiles. My first thought was to use a sunflower, so I sketched one using this design:

But, it was too complicated with too many lines in the design of the petals.

I redrew a sunflower using the design that a new blogger friend, Michele at Extremely Crafty in the UK, has on her blog. Check her out. She was so kind as to send her tutorial for this bag. You can receive it, too, if you email her with your request.

So Michele's flower looked easier to draw for a table top flower design (picture is courtesy of Michele, and her blog website is extremelycrafty.)

Step 2: Drawing the design on your work area. Here is a picture of a similar flower design on a wooden table topper that I drew yesterday:

3) Purchasing necessary materials

Home Depot provided three colors of ceramic tiles (reasonably priced at 39 cents apiece). And a sheet of 1 inch blue squares in glass was also purchased. Yellow, blue, and autumn brown tiles were broken by hitting with a hammer, and each piece was then loosely fit onto the table as shown in the picture below:

4) The next step is to adhere each broken piece of ceramic tile to the wood, then grout and cure. But that is a post for next week when I return from Dallas!

2 comments:

  1. Wow, Nancy! You do inspire me. My whole life I have thought that the making of mosaics was one craft that I *must* do, I loved them so much, and had examples before me in the homes of good friends.

    Once I took part in a day-long mosaic-making effort with another homeschooling family and our children, but I only helped my own children to make some lovely trivets and coasters. Later I scavenged hundreds of tiles that a tile-setter was going to take to the dump, and then eventually *I* sent them to the dump, after they sat in my back yard for years.

    But you make it look so easy, to just go to the store and buy a few tiles, and get started. I think I will print out this post and keep it somewhere as a reminder to myself. Thank you, and I'm looking forward to the next installment of your report!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello i am kavin, its my first time to commenting anywhere, when i read this article
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