Lazy Summers

Sorry for keeping you all in such suspense over PM's Parodied Puss on a Perfect Plate about to get Pinched. You'll just have to stay on your toes a little longer.

Summer caught up with me big time so I haven't had a chance to break the plate nor make any more mosaics. But since I've been traveling so much this summer I came across others who make mosaics also. In fact, it could be arguable that they are perhaps better and more diligent than myself in this art and maybe have enough left over broken glass to make themselves a parking lot out of it.

Welcome to Angel Foods in Truro, MA. (Or Provincetown, depending on who you ask.)

This place sells all sort of gourmet snack and treats and it's just a cool place. I went here to get snacks to take back to my hotel when I looked down at the parking lot and noticed glass everywhere. The glass came from plates, tiles, cookie jars and even toilets.

The man next door is an artist and I'm embarrassed to admit now that I can't remember his name. When I do, I'll mention it here but I met him. He came out into the parking lot to take a picture of mom and I picking up these pieces of glass. He was very kind and talked to us about he got started in mosaics. He allowed us to take some of the glass with us because he likes to see his glass scraps get used in other people's projects.

Here are the pieces I gathered:

I doubt that any of these pieces came from a toilet. I tried to get the ones that looked the most like Blue Willow and I have never in my life seen a Blue Willow toilet. Then again I guess there's a first time for everythng.

I did lots of shopping in PTown and I'll take pictures of some of the things I got later. Since I keep the mosaic pieces I collected with some glass beads I bought, here's a darkened picture of the glass beads:

Someday these will be a part of something. I can't wait. I'll blog about it when I do. And soon I'll blog about the wonders of Sculpey Clay! :o)

Plate Challenge 2007!: Part One of Part Two

Remember the last plate challenge? I had those pretty flowers in the center of the plate and I wanted to break only the rim and keep the flowers intact. On the first cut, I broke right through the flowers. I cussed and cried and didn't think I'd try that again too soon.

Well here I am giving it another shot. I bought a load of plates from a dollar store having a going out of business sale. All they had left were purple plates so I guess I will need to have a purple plate project some day in the future.

To remind you all what the plate challenge is, the object is to take a plate with an image in the center and use the wheel cutter to break the glass around the image with out destroying the image itself. When I did this in class we drew hearts and flowers and all of my attempts failed miserably. I decided that this time I just needed something in the center I would never want to break. Something that means a lot and I'd never want to harm in a million years. I chose to use the image of a trusted friend:

I chose Pharaoh Mobius. Who'd want to break that face, huh? It's so cute and poiny.

I took a wheel cutter to the rim of the plate and cut. The first cut broke off little bits off the rim but none brutally cracked PM's lovely mug.

So far so good. PM's puss is presently perfect. The rim seems to want to break apart nicely and not straight through his mouth like I might have expected.

Many cuts later and PM remains okay. I'm really glad how well the rim wants to bust up without cracking into the center where PM smiles cheerfully. This is great!

But I am so totally not done. While the rim has been removed, there's another obstacle:

Underneath the plate there is this rim. This could cause me some issues. Actually, it could cause PM some problems.

Tune in next time for the adventures of "PM's Periled Puss!"

Complete, yet Unfinished

My project is all done, sort of. Voila:

I used a glass cleaner and I shined it up nice and then I used a tile sealer over it all. I didn't feel the need to take pictures of that process because it's rather simple and boring. You don't need to see me put sealer on a sponge and dab it over the grout. All the sealer does is adhere the sand in the groat together so it won't come off and water won't ruin the surface. It's all sealed up good and that's hard to show so you'll just have to trust me. And I am trustworthy!

If you haven't noticed already, at the corner of the keepsake box I dripped some primer paint. Someday I will get around to sanding that spot off and maybe repainting it. I'm not in a hurry to paint the rest of the box. All this project was really about was to practice cutting the plate and gluing it to the surface of the keepsake box. I think it went well because I learned tons about using a wheel cutter and what I would do differently. Go me!

My next project that will be fun and I will totally document it for the blog. I will be reorganizing my glass collection. I've been steadily collecting mugs, plates, stained glass and other stuff and I was keeping it in my basement. Over the summer the basement flooded so I have to organize the slightly muddy stuff and the stuff that was piled on top of other stuff. I just know that during this process I'll be rediscovering awesome stuff that I forgot I bought. I'll get cool ideas and we'll all rejoice.

In the meantime I will still be showing off other completed projects but I do have one uncompleted project I can show you now that I found a few days ago stuck between some magazines.

I put it in the window to try and show off the light going through it but there it's much light outside right now. I'm too lazy to take the picture again so I'll explain what you're seeing. This was technically my first mosaic. In class, my teacher was trying to show us how easy it was to cut glass with a scorer and a wheel cutter. The lesson wasn't just about learning to use the tools but it was also about not being afraid of being cut by the glass. She told us that if you have a fear of being cut by glass then you should leave class now because you will get cut. A lot. And I did. I was first student to draw blood while making this pear and I proudly showed it off. Not to be outdone, the lady who cut herself after me actually held up her finger and grunted like Tim Allen on Home Improvement. Several times. We all moved away from her.

As you might be able to see, I drew an outline of a pear on the glass and then cut pieces to fill it in. I used a lighter green for the leaves, a darker green for the pear itself and then I used a peachy colored glass to give the pear an accent. It looks like the window reflection you'd see on an apple. I don't really care if most pears don't do that. I like it. It has character like me!

Someday I'd like to find a picture frame to glue it into and fill in the space around the pear and use it as a suncatcher. If I ever do that, I'll be happy to blog it all. :o)

Glue Boogers and Cat Hair

I'm going to take a moment in this blog to explain some mosaic terms I've been omitting so if I use those terms in the future, you'll know what I mean. Everything but the "sand" in my first project is stained glass. The weird tiles with the lines carved into them were called vitreous glass tiles or tesserae. They are Italian made even though the ones I buy seem to come from San Francisco, CA.

In the checkers board I used a coffee mug and in my current project I'm using a plate. While you may think that they are just mere coffee mugs and plates, they are actually called pique assiette (or picassiette). The term was created in 1938 after some French guy named Raymond Isadore who covered his entire home in pique assiette. His neighbors hated him and the eye sore he was creating so they called him "le Pique Assiette!" which means "plate stealer!" Obviously the term is now used for the plates, coffee mugs and other found glass so non-French speakers can sound intelligent when discussing mosaics.

This is where I began my project early yesterday. As you can see, I already cut out the flowers and I was getting ready to chop up more pieces to fit in around the flower on the top of the keepsake box. The wheel cutters are still a part of this process. The glue I'm using is called WeldBond. It's like Elmer's Glue but stronger. Much stronger. Glue-your-own-fingers-together stronger. It dries very quickly.

Emma helped. She watched the entire process. She liked the part where I cut the plate inside the plastic tub. She could see the pieces fly all over and she would sometimes lunge at the outside of the tub. I guess it must have been a slow day for birds flying into the window yesterday.

She was very cute. I don't think she left me all day. Next time, however, I'm putting a hairnet on her tail. She was always trying to stick it in my way.

And here is the finished product. Finished but not grouted. I'll do that in the next few days. I'll blog the process of that too.

Overall, there are things I would do differently. This plate was hard to bust apart. It didn't cooperate quite the way I would have liked. And plate rims are a bitch try and cut out. I hope I didn't ruin the wheel cutter. Those are expensive along with everything else attached to this hobbie.

The one thing that I found working too well was the gluing process. I'll have to remember for the next time that the strongest adhesive agent around is glue boogers and cat hair. This entire project would not have been made possible without it.

Until next time, "MLAAAAAAAAGH!

Plate Challenge 2007!

I started a new mosaic project so I thought I'd show off the "the plate challenge" since my project involves breaking a plate. I'll be using pieces of a broken plate on top of a keepsake box. I found a nice plate at the local SPCA Thrift Shop and I thought it's flowery design would look cute on top of the box.

It's not neccessary that the flowers on the inside of the plate remain intact but the challenge requires that the design on the inside doesn't get broken. I was taught this game in my mosaic class when our teacher had us draw a heart with permenent marker on the center of the plate. The goal was merely to remove the outer rim and keep the heart together. On my second cut with the wheel cutters, I broke my heart. I had no other plates to practice on so I had to leave my sorry failure on the table for all to see. It was shameful.

Not long after I started buying plates but I was nervous to try the challenge again. When I felt I had a plate that didn't mind trying the challenge on, I did and again, same results. I broke my heart on the second try.

I used my digital camera this morning to show my third try. Here's a picture of the plate, the wheel cutters and the safety glasses I needed to wear:

And there's my finger also!

I placed everything in the plastic tub because when you cut into plates, glass goes everywhere. This type of glass in unpredictable. My teacher also taught us that after working on a project like this, your skin will become very zitty. This is because those tiny little glass shards that you can't see get into your skin and voila! Pimples! I still laugh at her story that when her husband saw her a few days after she completed her project he looked at her face and said, "Jesus, Wendy! What the hell happened to you?" I don't have a husband but I have looked in the mirror and said the same thing only without the Wendy part. Since taking on this hobbie, Aveeno has become my friend.

Here I am cutting. Well, not really. I 'm just setting up the shot. You can tell because I'm totally not wearing those nifty goggles.

For the challenge, I'll be using both hands and really gripping those wheel cutters hard. As you can see, I have little puny hands.

Also, I'll be cutting into the plate, not at an angle. Cutting into the plate seemed to be the method the successful people in my class used. Of course, I used that method too and broke my heart twice.

Here goes my first cut:

And crap. I failed. Again. I'm not bitter. Not at all.

That's it for Plate Challenge 2007 then. See you all in 2008 or whenever I find another plate to break. Until then I'll be showing updates on this project through out the blog.

I'm gonna go away and cuss now.