In The Studio - Wednesday

I zipped through the 2nd mosaic I needed to do for the fund raiser donation reward this past week. It took 2 days!

End of day 1.

Working on an abstract this time was really easy for me. I am most comfortable using these colors and doing abstract designs, for sure.

End of day 2.

I'm probably going to grout both the beach scene and this one at the end of the week. I'll share photos when I do!

After I moved, some of my online friends reached out and asked if I needed anything, supplies wise, to get me back on my feet. Such sweet gestures and really appreciated, the first person said they had a few things in their garage they wanted to share with me and sent me a nice box filled with goodies. Some of which I used in the mosaics I just made.

It's always fun to get surprise packages in the mail!

Everything will get used eventually. Shortly after this one arrived, another online friend reminded me she owed me an exchange gift from many years ago and wanted to know if I needed anything in particular or if I wanted her to make me something? I told her honestly, I needed glue! I was finding some of my glass and dish shard stash, I found substrates and my tools. But I never found the glue! Somewhere there is a bottle floating around either in storage or is now long gone but it's not with me. After chatting with her for a bit through messages on Facebook, she sent me a message saying a box was on it's way. She lives in Canada. It took no time at all to get to me!

She handmade a cowl scarf in a favorite color for me last year when I was wearing a lot of scarves (it feels so good against my neck, I love it!), she sent me a mosaic she made, coloring book and pencils, note pads, a journal, small tags to use for gifts after coloring them and FOUR bottles of glue!!

I just can't tell you how blessed I feel. I am one lucky ducky to have online friends this giving. I've never, ever come across a sweeter bunch of people as the artists who create mosaics.

I'll share another post when I do some grouting!

Support Independent Artisans, Designers and Crafters for your gift-giving needs all throughout the year. Thank you!

Stay peaceful.

Cindy, Earth Mother Mosaics

In The Studio - Part 2

Happy Halloween!! There's much excitement in our house ... the little ones are counting the hours until they can dress up in their costumes, all pile into their other grandmother's van and her neighborhood to get lots and lots of candy!! Woo-hoo!

This Nana will stay home enjoying the quiet and work on something creative. I'm okay with this; not joining them is sad but I'm also relieved. The long walks around many blocks to get to as many houses as possible isn't as much fun as they used to be when I took my girls trick-or-treating. Staying home and getting some quiet time is not really all that bad.

It's interesting to note that no matter how many years of mosaic work I've got under my belt, I still make mistakes. Mostly the mistake(s) can be fixed but this kind of thing definitely keeps me humble. It's actually nice to continue to learn but once in a while I need a refresher course on things I knew and apparently forgot.

I put a small MDF cross on top of a larger MDF cross and decided I'd paint the small one and sprinkle glitter on it, then mosaic it with tempered glass. I do this technique often and rarely have trouble with it. However, this time, I used a silicone adhesive so drying time wasn't as long as the PVA glue needs. My mistake, which is quite clear in the photos below was not smoothing out the silicone before applying the tempered glass, leaving big chunks of glue between the tg. It also became quite clear that although the glue dried well, because it was thick in some spots and not in others, the grouting process would not work.

The larger MDF cross has blue and white broken china on it and the sides of both crosses and back of the large one are painted blue. I do like this a lot and wanted to fix my mistake so I could sell or gift it.

Luckily, it was easy to take the tg off which should be a clue as to how wrong the application of glue was. It shouldn't have been easy, but I'm glad it was!

I cleaned all the glue off using a scraping tool and a little vinegar. Next step is to add the adhesive again, SPREAD IT AROUND, and then add the tg once more. Lesson learned ... until next time ...

Muuuuuch better ... another one for the "to be grouted" pile - woo-hoo!

Support Independent Artisans, Designers and Crafters for your gift-giving needs all throughout the year. Thank you!

Stay peaceful,

Cindy