I found these little hanging bottles on amazon that are simply meant to hang from a tree outside or from a beam on your patio and then filled with water and a plant  to grow inside of it. Here’s the link on Amazon Tiny hanging bottle.  I’ve decided to create a tiny hanging stained glass mosaic light out of it and light it with a tiny bulb or cake light. Here’s the link on Amazon for the two light options Tiny bulb and Cake light.

So now let’s get into what you need exactly to make your very own DIY mosaic tiny hanging light.

Materials Needed for DIY Mosaic Tiny Hanging Light

• Your Creative Co-op glass hanging bottle with jute rope
• Plum and amber scrap stained glass for this project or whatever colors of scrap stained glass you’d like
• Glass cutter
• Running pliers
• Mosaic cutters
• Tweezers
• Safety glasses
• Clear water resistant adhesive
• Black grout
• Latex additive
• Mixing bowl, spoon, sponge and old rags

How to Make Your Very Own DIY Mosaic Tiny Hanging Light

Below you’ll find my step-by-step instructions on how to create your very own lovely tiny mosaic hanging light at home. Let’s get going!

Step 1: Gather Your Materials and Tools

Before you get started, make sure you have everything you need within arms reach. For this particular mosaic tiny hanging light I’ve decided to use plum and amber scrap glass.

*Tip: Make sure you take a look at your glass with light passing through it before using it for your project. You want to make certain that it will look the way you want it to look once it’s lit with your tiny bulb or cake light.

Step 2: Cut Your Glass

This is a great beginners project because you’re simply going to create squares out of your scrap stained glass that you’ve decided to use.

Take your glass cutter and roll the diamond head across your amber scrap glass vertically to create strips. Make certain to move the glass cutter in only one direction across your glass when scoring. Then score your glass horizontally creating small irregular squares or a grid pattern.

Then take your running pliers and line the center of the head of the running pliers up with one of the score lines and apply just enough pressure to break the score. Continue this process until all your vertical scores are broken out.

Repeat this process to break out your horizontal scores which will leave you with a pile of irregularly cut small amber squares to work with.

Repeat this process for your plum colored scrap glass also.

You now have all the tiny pieces of stained glass to cover your tiny hanging light with!

Step 3: Glue Your Glass Onto Your Base

Time to begin gluing your irregularly cut squares on to your base. I decided to create vertical wavy lines out of my plum and amber glass squares but seriously, you can do whatever your little heart desires for your mosaic tiny hanging light!

*Tip: As you’re gluing on your pieces of glass, you will notice that the clear water resistant adhesive seeps out from underneath each piece forming pools around certain pieces of glass. The glue will dry to a rubbery consistency and you will easily be able to remove it with your tweezers. It’s key to do this as you go to prepare the piece for grouting. You don’t want dried glue where grout needs to be or it will distort your image.  

Continue the process of gluing pieces on your base until the entire base is covered in glass.

Step 4: Gather Your Grouting Materials

To grout, all you’re going to need is your black grout, ,latex additive, mixing bowl, spoon, sponge and old cloths. Make certain you’re near a water source as you’re going to need to rinse your sponge out a few times when cleaning the grout off of your mosaic tiny hanging light.

I recommend covering the surface that you’ll be grouting on with old towels or newspaper to prevent staining your surface.

Step 5: Mix, Apply and Clean Off Your Excess Grout

OK!  Now you’re ready for the actual grouting process. So first, you want to place some grout in your mixing bowl and then begin to add the liquid latex additive to it. You’re attempting to achieve the consistency of oily peanut butter. Do not worry if you add too much additive and make the mixture too runny, you can always add more dry grout to achieve the proper consistency.

It’s time now to cover your tiny light base with grout. I typically have on garden gloves for the initial grouting layer and then as I clean the excess grout off with my sponge, I remove my garden gloves and continue cleaning. Just helps to keep your fingernails from becoming too stained from the black grout.

Clean the excess grout off with your moistened sponge until it is all removed and then use an old rag to clean and polish the glass. Now at this point, there will be spots that you will see dried glue in a joint instead of grout. This is when you take your tweezers and remove the dried glue and replace with your grout mixture.

Once you have spent the time to meticulously inspect all your grout joints and repair what needs to be repaired, you will end up with a spectacular mosaic tiny hanging light!

This is another option for a mosaic tiny hanging light design. I didn’t create irregular vertical rows but more irregular curved rows. I used turquoise and tan scrap stained glass for this one.

For this mosaic tiny hanging light I used multi-colored scrap stained glass and created a patchwork type pattern on my tiny hanging light base.

*Tips regarding cleaning and detailing stained glass mosaic lit projects:

• Before ever grouting your piece, take a pair of tweezers and remove as much glue as you can from between the joints. This saves time having to do so after you grout your piece.
• Light your piece right after grouting so that you can see where there is glue blocking a joint where grout should be so that you can make your corrections by removing the glue with your tweezers and replacing grout in the joint.
• Even after grouting and cleaning with a moistened sponge and rag, go back to the piece a half hour later and clean with a cloth again as grout leaves a fine residue that needs to be removed.
• Make certain to create a nice grout line on the top and bottom edges of your piece.
• If you see the next day that you have left grout in place that you shouldn’t have, take a sharp edge or tweezers edge and remove the grout by scraping it off the glass pieces.
• It’s imperative that you use only latex additive mixed in to your grout when working with glass on glass mosaics. The latex additive allows the grout to adhere to the glass. Without it the grout would eventually pull away from the glass.
• It is also imperative that you use a clear water resistant adhesive. Attempt to cover each piece you glue on with full coverage on the underside. You will always get some seepage of grout under a few pieces of glass here and there but you can minimize this by making sure that you completely cover each piece prior to gluing it down.
• Select glass that isn’t overly textured as this will cause much work with the cleaning process after grouting. It’s also more difficult to score and break. For beginners, work with glass that is lovely but easy to score and break and clean after grouting.
• When cleaning up after the grouting process, make sure to place any left over grout in your mixing bowl in the garbage before rinsing your bowl. It’s always a good idea to rinse the least amount of grout down your drain. Just being environmentally conscious:)

Always remember when creating an abstract design such as this that the fun of doing an abstract design is that you can go with it where ever it takes you! It’s not rigid, it’s completely flexible which contributes to how much fun it is to create it!

This is a great beginners project! Once you get a feel for how to handle a glass cutter and score a piece of glass in addition to feeling comfortable with breaking out your scores with your running pliers, you’ve basically opened yourself up to a whole new world of possibilities with stained glass mosaics!

Also, always remember that if you’re wanting to control the lines of your cut pieces of irregular scrap glass, you can always take them to your glass grinder and smooth out edges or define edges..it’s your call.

I find that lit mosaics offer me as the creator, an extra “Wow!” after creating a piece. The feeling of lighting up a piece of mosaic artwork that you have created is like lighting the candles on a birthday cake before everyone joins in unison to celebrate a special person’s birthday! “Hip Hip Hooray!

Danielle Fernandez

Danielle is the mosaic artist and teacher behind Mosaics Mostly. She has been creating mosaics for over 25 years, and has taught hundreds of people to create their very own mosaic DIY projects at home. She has been featured in multiple galleries and magazines, and has even had her own beginner mosaics book published! She loves crafts, and is always working on something new!