Made a mosaic hot plate

What do you call these things anyway: pot stand, hot pot stand? It’s something to put a hot pot or serving dish on so not to damage the surface of your table of counter. Point is, it was a boring piece of supawood and I made it pretty.

I was browsing Le Mar’s beading section (local craft shop) when I heard women talk of some craft courses. We swapped contact details and I booked my spot for this Saturday past – Jeanne only takes 5 people at a time, it being the middle of the month we were only two.

I took a mosaic class a few years ago, but it really doesn’t compare to Jeanne’s one. She showed me exactly how to cut those tiles to make up the fine detail you want create. She had reference books handy, showed examples of her own work and kept my coffee cup full. She has her own wood shed in the backyard where she custom makes her own wood bases, and where she cut ours.

I decided to make a bird on my plate. My personal twitter joke (well, not personal now since it’s on the web); since I mostly tweet from the kitchen (ironic cause #Ihatecooking) but that’s where the dynamics of our home happens. Also the bird had to be red cause my kitchen is red.

Jeanne helped twig out my branch problem and nodded and smiled when I couldn’t quite explain what I had in mind with the swirl. But she helped me with cutting some of the trickier tiles and wasn’t shy with complements and encouragement.

I am seriously considering sitting in at her next class with my own project. (She actually encourages this. That you buy your kit and bring it all with to her next class when she teaches new crafties, so if you need more advanced technique advice, or help cutting tiles, she’s right there – and you get to meet and mingle with new people too)

So, here are some of the pics I took, in order of work in progress.

I didn’t want to randomly fill the space with tiles, so I tried to create a texture that follows the curve of the bird.

Jeanne helped me LOADS with the feet – she has mastered the fine stroke of luck to cut those curves

Played around a bit on how to fill in the branch. I decided on the single row of tiles, and filling bewteen the toes with fiddly bits. It’s coming along nicely now

The border wa another kettle of fish. I spent alomst half an hour browsing books for ideas. Settled for a quarter orange, then 2 half quarters of mirror (I know, technically eighths). And I had to arrange and wiggle them a bit to match up the corners.

With the border finished, I started filling in the background. Originally the twig had a swirly. But I decided to incorporate it into the background in the same colour and tile so that it won’t distract from the main focus – the red bird.

I chose triangular broken tile to contrast with the mainly square and rectangular coloured tiles. I like how it looks at this stage without any grout (filling). You can see the effect I wanted with the swirl.

And this stage always looks like you’ve ruined your project. And it’s a schlep filling in the holes. This is also when you discover loose tiles. I had about 3.

Final product! Subtle background texture to really let the bird-on-a-twig stand out.

Final product! Subtle background texture to really let the bird-on-a-twig stand out.

What do you think?

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