I came up with a project using a miniature bottle and a tiny battery operated light that can be turned on and off to set at each place setting at your Thanksgiving table. A small stained glass mosaic table light for each of your guests to enjoy! Here’s the Tiny battery operated light that I use for this project.

So now let’s get into exactly what you need to create these lovely little lit additions to your Thanksgiving table!

Materials Needed for DIY Mosaic Table Setting Light

• Miniature bottles
• Tiny battery operated light
• Scrap glass that you choose to cover the bottle with
• Glass cutter
• Mosaic cutter
• Running pliers
• Clear water resistant adhesive
• Black grout
• Latex additive
• Mixing bowl, spoon, sponge, old rags and a marker

How to Make Your Very Own DIY Mosaic Table Setting Light

Below you’ll find my step-by-step instructions on how to make your very own lovely mosaic table setting lights for your Thanksgiving dinner! Let’s get started!

Step 1: Gather Your Materials and Tools

Before you get started, you want make sure that you have everything you need within hands reach. For this particular little light project, I decided to use two different shades of scrap turquoise stained glass and some scrap amber stained glass.

It’s optional as to whether or not you need to use a glass grinder as these little strips you will cut will not always have straight edges and you may opt to shape them more perfectly, but that is completely up to you. You will definitely need your glass cutter, running pliers and mosaic cutter though.

*Tip: Always take a look at your glass with light passing through it so that you have an idea of what it will look like when lit.

Step 2: Cut your Glass Strips

Let’s start by creating our strips that we’ll be covering this little cordial bottle with.

Score your amber glass vertically into thin strips with your glass cutter. Then line the center of the head of your running pliers up with one of the score lines. Apply just enough pressure to break the score. Continue breaking out all the vertical scores leaving you with a pile of thin strips.

Repeat this process with the other 2 colors of turquoise stained glass.

You now have a variety of strips to work with.

Step 3: Cut and Glue Your Glass on Your Base

Now we’re going to take these lovely glass strips that we just cut and use mosaic cutters to cut them at all different lengths to disperse the three different colors of glass interestingly around the body of the bottle.

It’s optional to smooth the edges of the tips of each strip to straighten them as you can create this design using slanted edges. It’s completely up to you. I’ve decided to smooth all the edges straight.

Take the slanted edge to your grinder and gently smooth the edge until it’s straight. Then, glue the piece in place.

The pieces that are to be glued underneath your initial top row need to be marked and then cut with your mosaic cutters.

Repeat this process until you have covered the entire body of your little bottle.

To finish covering your little bottle, cut small square out of your strips to glue on to the top and neck of the bottle.

Now it’s Time to Grout!

You’ve covered your little bottle with stained glass pieces and are now ready to grout.

We’ll need to prepare the grout mixture, apply it to the little bottles surface and thoroughly clean it.

If you’ve never grouted before, checkout my post on How to Grout Your DIY Mosaics here.

Step 4: Gather Your Grouting Materials

To grout, all you’ll be needing is your grout, latex additive, mixing bowl, spoon, sponge, some old cloths and water.

I recommend covering the surface you’ll be grouting on with either old newspaper or cloths to prevent any of the grout from staining your work surface.

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

KK! Now you’re ready for the actual grouting process. First, you want create your grout mixture. Mix enough additive into your dry grout to achieve the consistency of oily peanut butter.

Don’t worry if you’ve added too much additive and it’s runny. Simply add more dry grout to the mixture to achieve the proper consistency.

Cover your little light with the grout mixture. Thoroughly clean the excess grout off the surface of the bottle with a moistened sponge first and then with dry old cloths. Once thoroughly cleaned, light your little mosaic table setting light up with these bulbs I found on Amazon –  Tiny battery operated light.

Here’s a pic of two other color options as I needed a set of 3 for my table and my family:)

Here’s a glimpse of what they look like included in your table setting. Gorgeous huh!!??

*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:)

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!

The post DIY Thanksgiving Mosaic Table Setting Light Project appeared first on Mosaics Mostly.

Years ago when I started making these ornaments, my idea was to create a mosaic gift for very special people in my life that resembled a mini stained glass window. I decided to use vintage images, in fact, vintage German images. I was living in Lititz, Pennsylvania in the middle of four Amish farms and I had a Menonite bookstore within walking distance of my home. The owner of this bookstore, to this day, imports sheets of vintage German cut outs of angels, Santa, children, etc. These images are the source for all of the ornaments that I make but there are tons of gorgeous vintage images out there that can be used to create absolutely gorgeous ornaments.

Materials Needed for DIY Mosaic Christmas Ornament

• Clear untextured glass
• Scrap stained glass
• Paper cut-out vintage images
• Glass cutter
• Running pliers
• Mosaic cutter
• Glass grinder with both a grinding head and a hole making grinding head
• Clear water resistant adhesive
• Black grout
• Latex additive
• Mixing bowl, spoon, sponge, old rags and scissors

*Tip: I get my clear glass to create my glass bases of my ornaments at the dollar store! I buy the cheapest picture frames and use the glass in the frame to create both the base and the glass pieces I need to cover the image itself.

How to Make Your Very Own DIY Mosaic Christmas Ornament

Below you’ll find my step-by-step instructions on how to create your very own lovely mosaic Christmas ornament or ornaments at home. So, let’s get started!

Step 1: Gather Your Materials and Tools

Before you get started, you want to make sure that you have everything that you’re going to be needing to create these ornaments with arms reach.

For this ornament, I am using a precious vintage angel cut-out that is kneeling and praying. I’ve also selected some lovely scrap stained glass to compliment the image. I’ve chosen a clear textured glass, green glass and brown glass.

Have your glass grinder and cutting tools close by as you will be using them every step of the way.

Step 2: Grind a Hole Through your Glass Base of Your Ornament 

Your glass grinder has a number of different heads that can be used in order to achieve what you’re needing to do with your piece of glass that you’re grinding. The main grinding head simply shapes glass and for me, tile. It can be removed quite easily with an allen wrench that is supplied with your glass grinder and with alternative grinding heads you might purchase.

Once you remove the regular grinding head, simply tighten up the hole creating grinder bit with your wrench. Make certain you keep this grinding head wet with a moistened sponge behind the bit while attempting to create your hole.

Take the piece of clear glass that you have and cut it to the specific shape that you desire for your ornament with your glass cutter and running pliers. If you’re new to mosaics and would like to know how to cut glass or stained glass, please check out my post on How to cut stained glass.

Once the base piece is cut, you take it to the glass grinder and rock the piece of glass gently over the hole creating head while keeping it wet until a hole forms in the glass where you want the hole to be in order to hang your ornament.

Step 3: Transfer Your Image on to Your Base and Cover it with Clear Glass

Now that you’ve prepared the base of your ornament it’s time to transfer the image on to it that you will be covering with clear glass. Use your clear water resistant adhesive to glue it to the base.

Cut smaller pieces of clear glass to cover the image. Keep in mind that you’ll be covering the rest of the ornament with small stained glass pieces. Cover each piece of clear glass with your adhesive and attempt to push out as many of the air bubbles that you can when placing it on the image.

Once you’ve covered the image with clear glass smooth the edges of your base on the glass grinder to make it safe for handling. You could have actually done this straight after cutting the base for your ornament:) I simply forgot!

Step 4: Mark and Cut Your Pieces of Scrap Stained Glass to Surround Your Image

Select lovely colors of scrap stained glass to surround your image.

Mark a piece to fit, cut it with your mosaic cutters and glue the piece in place.

Some of your stained glass pieces, like you corner pieces, may need to be cut with your glass cutter. Once the the glass has been scored, break the scores with your running pliers. When necessary, take the piece to your glass grinder and shape it to fit nicely on your ornament base.

Continue this process until you’ve completely surrounded your lovely vintage image with stained glass.

Step 5: Gather Your Grouting Materials

To grout your lovely ornament all you’ll need is your black grout, latex additive, mixing bowl, spoon, sponge and old cloths. Make sure you’re near a water source as you’ll need to wash you sponge several times when cleaning the excess grout off your ornament.

I recommend covering the surface you’ll be working on with newspaper or old rags to prevent staining your work surface with you black grout mixture.

Step 6: Mix, Apply and Clean Off Your Excess Grout

Now you’re ready for the actual grouting process. Place some dry grout in a bowl and add some latex additive to it. You’re need to achieve the consistency of oily peanut butter. Don’t worry if you add to much and you mixture is soupy. Just add some more dry grout until you achieve the proper consistency.

Apply the some of the grout mixture over the top of your ornament. Remove the excess grout with a moistened sponge. Finally, clean the ornament with a cloth polishing the glass until every bit of the excess grout is removed.

This gorgeous ornament is now ready for hanging! I’ve sold these ornaments for years! Some people place them on their Christmas trees, some place them on special gift wrapped packages and some simply hang them in their homes in the windows or on their walls. Tiny little stained glass windows to enjoy:)

*Tips regarding cleaning and detailing stained glass mosaics:

• 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.
• Inspect your piece with light passing through it 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 both again as grout leaves a fine residue that needs to be removed.
• Make certain to create a nice grout line around the edges of your ornament. Take your finger and smooth the grout around the edges.
• 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:)

This process of sandwiching images under clear glass can lend itself to many other project ideas!!! Imagine creating personalized ornaments with special photos of your loved ones! How cool would that be!??

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!

The post DIY Mosaic Christmas Ornament Project appeared first on Mosaics Mostly.

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!

The post DIY Mosaic Tiny Hanging Light Project appeared first on Mosaics Mostly.

I’ve got something else in mind! How about we cover the vase with gorgeous pieces of colored stained glass and lovely glass beads, grout it, clean it and then insert battery operated fairy lights to create a gorgeous wall sconce for any room of your home or patio. Here’s the Amazon link to the glass beads I’m using – Glass Beads

Materials Needed for DIY Mosaic Wall Sconce

• Cylindrical wall hanging terrarium
• Green and amber scrap stained glass
• Green and amber glass beads
• Glass cutter
• Running pliers
• Mosaic cutter
• Clear water resistant adhesive
• Black grout
• Latex additive
• Safety glasses
• Garden gloves, mixing bowl, spoon, sponge and old rags
• Tweezers
• Battery operated fairy lights

How to Make Your Very Own DIY Mosaic Wall Sconce

Below you’ll find the step-by-step instructions on how to make your own beautiful mosaic wall sconce at home. Let’s get started!

Step 1: Gather Your Materials and Tools

Before getting started, make sure that you have everything you need for this project within arms reach. For this particular sconce project, I’m using a cylindrical terrarium that I purchase through Amazon. I purchased a set of four terrariums actually for an extremely reasonable price! But that’s Amazon now isn’t it?

I’m also using two different shades of translucent/semi-translucent green glass and two different shades of translucent amber glass.

*Tip: Make sure to take a look at the scrap glass that you’ll be using with light passing through it before getting started so that you know what it will look like when it is lit by your fairy lights after the sconce is completed.

Step 2: Cut Your Glass

I decided that I wanted long vertical strips of color running through the design only to be broken up by the glass beads. I start by scoring my green glass vertically with my pistol grip glass cutter. Roll the diamond head wheel of your glass cutter in one direction only along the surface of your glass creating strips. Then line up the center of the head of your running pliers with each of the score lines and apply enough pressure to break the score.

Repeat this process until you’ve broken out all the strips of green glass.  Create strips out of your other green scrap glass and your two amber shades using the exact same method. It’s up to you whether or not you’d like to cut all the strips the same width or vary them in thickness. For this project I’ve cut the all about the same width.

If you’re new to creating mosaics and need to learn how to cut glass properly, check out my post on How to cut stained glass here.

Step 3: Glue Your Glass Onto Your Base

It’s now time to intermix our lovely strips of stained glass while gluing them on to our base. Use your mosaic cutter to cut different lengths of glass to make the design interesting. When necessary, use your mosaic cutter to cut out an arched piece to fit around the back circular hanger hole.

You will also need to mark pieces to fit around that hole and then cut the strip with your mosaic cutters. You then glue the piece in place. Continue until you’ve covered the top half of your sconce with glass strips.

Under each one of the strips that you’ve glued on, glue on a green or amber glass bead. This irregular line of glass beads will really look beautiful when your sconce is completed. The beads help to create a dripping effect! You’ll love it…you’ll see!

Next, glue on more glass strips under each bead. Stagger the colors of glass of course and cut the pieces to fit with your mosaic cutters. There’s no rhyme or reason to this. Mix the colored strips up in any fashion you choose.

Continue this process until you’ve achieved full coverage on your glass base.

Now, Time to Grout!

You’ve covered your entire glass base with lovely stained glass strips and glass beads. The last portion of this project is preparing your grouting mixture, applying your grout to the surface that you’ve covered and finally cleaning your piece thoroughly.

If you’ve never grouted before, check out my post on How to Grout Your DIY Mosaics here.

Step 4: Gather your Grouting Materials

To grout, all you’ll need is your black grout, latex additive, mixing bowl, spoon, sponge, old cloths and water. Oh yeah, and of course your sconce:) I recommend covering the surface that you are going to be grouting on with either old newspaper or old rags to prevent any of the grout from staining your work surface.

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

Now you’re ready for the actual grouting process. First, you want to mix create your grout mixture. Mix the liquid latex additive into your dry grout. You’re wanting to achieve the consistency of oily peanut butter. Don’t worry if you add to much latex additive, simply add a little more dry grout until you reach the proper consistency.

Once your grout is mixed to the correct consistency, cover the surface of your sconce with the grout mixture. You want to make sure that you cover the entire surface so that the grout seeps into ever crevice. Don’t be afraid to use to much grout mixture as your going to be wiping it clean with your sponge anyway.

After your entire surface is covered, take your sponge and wet it, squeezing out the majority of the water, and wipe it over the surface of your sconce removing all the excess grout. Make sure to remove as much of the grout from around each bead with your sponge as alot of grout will pool around the beads. Take the time to remove as much grout off the surface with your moistened sponge as you can.

After you’ve removed as much grout as you possibly could with your sponge, finish cleaning the surface of your sconce with old cloth towel or rag.

The last bit of cleaning to do needs to take place with the fairy lights on and inserted into your sconce. Take the time to inspect the piece and look for areas of the surface where glue is present between two pieces of glass instead of the grout mixture. You’ll need to remove this glue with tweezers or a sharp object and put some grout mixture in it’s place. This part is a bit time consuming and tedious, but trust me, it’s so worth it in order to achieve a professional looking sconce.

Take a look! Once lit, it looks like a million bucks!!

A Few Tips:

• Make certain to completely cover each piece of your stained glass strips and your beads with the clear water resistant adhesive in order to avoid seepage of the grout mixture underneath the glass strips or beads.
• Clean the excess glue as you go to save time during your final cleaning after grouting. Allow the glue to dry slightly and then remove it with a pair of tweezers as the glue dries to a rubbery consistency and is easily removed at this point.
• Don’t get frustrated if while cleaning or grouting your piece a bead becomes loose and needs to be reglued. This does happen. Just reglue it either after you’ve cleaned the rest of the piece or glue it on immediately and let it dry while you’re cleaning the rest of the piece.
• When hanging your sconce, hammer a finishing nail into the wall on the diagonal so that the sconce lays flush on the wall.
• Take some grout mixture on your index finger and create a nice smooth finished line on the top edge of your sconce and the bottom edge of your sconce.
• Make certain to always wear your safety goggles when working with glass.

Here are two other versions of the same sconce created with different colors of scrap stained glass and glass beads.

And here is a version of the sconce created with different colored scrap stained glass and no beads.

Here are two other versions of the sconce created with different colored scrap stained glass cut in irregular squares instead of strips and no beads. Remember to check out my post on How to Cut Stained Glass here where I show you how to cut irregular squares.

As you can see the possibilities are completely endless when it comes to a project such as this one. Most stained glass shops sell scrap glass by the pound. Stained glass shops also sell “off cuts” which are small pieces of glass that are larger than the scrap they would sell to you. Amazon also sells bags of mixed scrap glass and full sheets. Think of the glass as your crayons! and remember how exciting it was to open the large box of your new crayolas!! Trust me, it’s the same when you receive your order of glass!

These lovely sconces can be hung very safely with a finishing nail hammered in at an angle. They then lay flush against the wall:) Remember there is a hole in the back of each hanging vase:)

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!

The post DIY Mosaic Wall Sconce appeared first on Mosaics Mostly.

Step 1: Gather Your Materials

For this post, I’ve decided to show you how to grout a DIY lit glass project, but the exact same process applies to grouting all your tile mosaics and non lit glass mosaic projects. In order to grout this lovely stained glass mosaic table lamp you’ll need your dry grout, latex additive, mixing bowl, spoon, sponge, garden gloves, old towels, water and of course, your project. I’m using black grout for this project as I’m wanting each side to resemble a leaded and soldered stained glass window. Black grout dries to a very dark gray which is the same color as soldered lead. You need to add liquid latex instead of water to your dry grout to that the grout mixture adheres to your glass base. If you don’t use latex additive the grout will not adhere as well to your glass base and you may have cracking and even pieces of grout loosening from the joints. Prior to grouting any mosaic, make sure you remove as much of the excess water resistant glue that may have seeped out from underneath a piece and filled a joint that needs to be filled with grout. With lit stained glass mosaics, removing the excess glue is critical as it will distort your design when the piece is lit.

Step 2: Prepare Your Piece to Be Grouted

This step is not necessary for many mosaic projects, but for this mosaic lamp project it is. You want to tape the top edge of your lamp with masking tape or painters tape as you want to keep that edge all clean and free of grout. Plus, you don’t want excess grout falling inside your lamp base as this base is an open design.

Step 3: Mix, Apply and Clean Off Your Excess Grout

You’re ready now for the actual grouting process. First, place some dry grout into your mixing bowl and add enough latex additive to achieve the consistency of oily peanut butter. Don’t worry if you accidentally add to much latex, simply add more dry grout to the mixture until you achieve the proper consistency.

Once your grout mixture is ready, cover the first side of your lamp with grout. Make certain you cover the entire surface and get the mixture into every crevice. Don’t be afraid to use too much grout and you’ll be cleaning the excess off little by little. After you’ve covered the side completely, take a moistened sponge and begin wiping off the excess grout. Make certain you’re near  water source as you will need to rinse your sponge repeatedly. After you’ve cleaned the majority of the grout off, clean it thoroughly with a old towel or rag. Repeat this process for the other three sides of your lamp. Make sure you are grouting and cleaning one side at a time to prevent any excess grout from drying on the surface of your pieces. If you’re grout dries up a bit, simply add more latex additive to it to regain the proper consistency of your initial mixture. Make sure to create an nice transition edge along each side of your lamp by applying grout to the edge and smoothing it with your finger.

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Take a look at the finished product after cleaning thoroughly!

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!

The post How to Grout Your DIY Mosaics appeared first on Mosaics Mostly.

The Glass Grinder and Grinding Heads

There are all different heads that you can purchase for your glass grinder. To shape thicker, heavier, textured glass, you need a coarse head. To shape more standard stained glass you need a fine to medium head. *Tip: Glass grinders and grinder heads can be purchased from a local stained glass shop or off Amazon.

It’s easy enough to change the head out on your grinder. They provide you with an Allen wrench and you remove one and replace it with another.

There are a variety of grinder heads that can be purchased for grinding holes in your glass etc.

Shaping Glass on Your Grinder

Before you begin shaping your pieces of stained glass on your glass grinder, you’ll want to replace you splash guard and insert a wet sponge in the area provided behind your grinding head. It’s necessary for your grinding head to remain wet while you’re shaping your pieces of glass. You’ll be marking your glass piece to fit and cutting the piece with either your mosaic cutter or scoring the piece with your glass cutter and breaking the score with your running pliers. If you’ve never cut glass before, check out my post on how to cut stained glass (insert link) here. Next, turn on your glass grinder, take the rough cut piece to the spinning grinder head and smooth the edge by pushing it against the spinning head. Once the piece is smoothed, glue it in place. Always make sure you’re wearing safety glasses when grinding your glass. Here’s an example of a piece shaped after being cut with a mosaic cutter. Here’s an example of a piece shaped after being scored with your glass cutter and broken out with your running pliers. This piece only needs it’s tip rounded a bit. Simply take it to your glass grinder and barely touch the tip to the grinder to round off the tip. By using a glass grinder to smooth and shape your pieces of stained glass, you can not only create mosaics with larger pieces that have been sculpted to fit within your design, but can achieve greater detail within your design and will create a more professional looking mosaic. Below are a few examples of stained glass mosaics created using a glass grinder.

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!

The post How to Sculpt Glass on Your Glass Grinder appeared first on Mosaics Mostly.

Well, I’ll show you that you can shape and smooth pieces of ceramic tile in the same way when creating mosaics.

The Glass Grinder and Grinding Heads

There are all different heads that you can purchase for your glass grinder. To shape wall tile, you need a coarse head. To shape floor tile you need an even coarser head.

*Tip: Glass grinders and grinder heads can be purchased from a local stained glass shop or off Amazon.

It’s easy enough to change the head out on your grinder. They provide you with an Allen wrench and you remove one and replace it with another.

There are a variety of grinder heads that can be purchased for grinding holes in your glass etc.

Shaping Tile on Your Grinder

Before you begin grinding the rough edge of your tile, you’ll want to replace you splash guard and insert a wet sponge in the area provided behind your grinding head. It’s necessary for your grinding head to remain wet while you’re grinding the edge of your tile.

You’ll be marking your tile piece to fit and cutting the piece with your mosaic cutter.

Next, turn on your glass grinder, take the rough cut piece to the spinning grinder head and smooth the edge by pushing it against the spinning head.

Always make sure to wear safety glasses when grinding tile on your glass grinder.

Once the piece is smoothed, glue it in place.

Some tile pieces will actually need to be completely reshaped such as this one. The same process applies but instead you will be grinding both sides of this piece until it is shaped properly to be glued in place.

By using a glass grinder to smooth and shape your pieces of tile, you can not only create mosaics with larger pieces that have been sculpted to fit within your design, but can achieve greater detail within your design and will create a more professional looking mosaic. Below are a few examples of tile mosaics created using a glass grinder.

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!

The post How to Sculpt Tile on a Glass Grinder appeared first on Mosaics Mostly.

This post is dedicated to showing you how simple it can be.

Tools Needed for Cutting Stained Glass

• Glass cutter
• Running pliers
• Mosaic cutter
• Safety glasses

Step 1: How to Cut Glass Using a Glass Cutter and Running Pliers

The process of scoring glass with a glass cutter is quite easy.

You simply roll the head of your glass cutter over the surface of your glass in one direction only from one edge of your glass to another edge. This is referred to as “scoring” your glass.

If you’re wanting to create squares, simply score your your glass vertically and then score it again horizontally creating a grid.

Then in order to create your squares, you need to “break them out” with your running pliers.

To do this, you need to line the center of the head of your running plier up with one of your vertical scores. Apply just enough pressure to break the glass along the score.

Break out all the vertical scores with your running pliers leaving you with strips.

Take each one of your strips and break all the horizontal scores with your running pliers leaving you with a pile of squares to work with.

You also have the option of working with strips of glass by just breaking out your vertical scores.

You can cut irregular pieces of glass with your glass cutter and running pliers repeating this same process of scoring and breaking.

Step 2: How to Cut Glass Using a Mosaic Cutter

You select a mosaic cutter for cutting glass when you need small bits cut.

Typically you mark pieces to fit, cut them with your mosaic cutter and glued them in place.

Small pieces cut with the mosaic cutter can also be used to create the interior portion of a design such as this leaf or to cover an entire piece randomly with glass.

I hope this post helps in coordination with following my instructions for each of my project posts.

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!

The post How to Cut Stained Glass appeared first on Mosaics Mostly.

I thought long and hard before deciding what I wanted to achieve with this piece. I decided that a nature theme was what I was looking for as the box would be nestled in among the trees in the front of my home.

I decided to that I wanted to make the mailbox look like stone. To do that I would use some leftover floor tiles that I had. I then decided that I wanted stained glass floating autumn leaves covering the box. This would create an interesting effect as stained glass is much thinner than flooring tile so the leaves will look “inset” on the stone mailbox.

Materials Need for DIY Mosaic Mailbox 

• Pressure treated wooden mailbox-but metal is best as most pressure treated wood will still expand and contract in different weather causing pieces to fall off eventually.
• Beige colored floor tiles or any floor tile that looks like stone
• Scrap stained glass of different colors to create autumn leaves – colors such as amber, orange, plum, red, green, yellow etc.
• Free printable leaf patterns
• Traceable numbers for your house number
• Clear water resistant adhesive
• Marker and scissors
• Glass cutter
• Running pliers
• Mosaic cutters
• Glass grinder
• Black grout
• Latex additive
• Black paint and brush
• Mixing bowl, spoon, sponge and some old rags or towels
• Safety glasses
• Garden gloves

How to Make Your Own DIY Mosaic Mailbox

Below you’ll find my step-by-step instructions on how to create a beautiful mosaic mailbox at home.

Step 1: Gather Your Materials and Tools

Here’s your plain old wooden mailbox that we’re going to transform into a lovely mosaic masterpiece! Thought I’d show you all 4 sides that we’ll be covering with our glass floating leaves design.

Here is the tile I’ll be using and the stained glass colors I’ve chosen for the leaves.

My glass grinder, running pliers, glass cutter and mosaic cutter.

Step 2: Draw Your Design on Your Mailbox

The first thing we need to do is enlarge the number 98, which just happens to be my house number,  on a printer to fit the door of the mailbox.

Then we tape or lightly glue the numbers on the door of the mailbox. Trace around the numbers with a pencil or marker and then remove the paper numbers from the door.

Next, print out some free printable leaf patterns off the internet. Enlarge them so that they are the right size for the design.

Then make a few copies of the enlarged leaves sheet so that you can cut out a few of each pattern for both sides of the mailbox.

Tape or lightly glue the leaves on the roof and side of your mailbox in a random pattern as if they’ve simply fallen off the trees above and landed on your mailbox.

Do the same for the other side of your box.

Now with a marker or pencil trace each leaf with it’s stem. Remove the paper pattern after you’ve traced them all.

You’re now ready to begin creating your stained glass mosaic leaves.

Step 3: Cut Your Glass

I’ve got some lovely colors of scrap stained glass to create some beautiful autumn leaves for the mailbox. I’ll use the green glass as an example as to how we’ll cut all the different colors of stained glass that we’ll use to create all  the mosaic leaves.

Score your green glass in irregular wavy vertical lines with your glass cutter. Remember to always move in one direction with your cutter (no backwards and forwards motions) as this may confuse your glass and make it difficult to break the scores with your running pliers.

Do the same horizontally creating irregularly shaped squares.

Line the center of the tip of your running pliers up with one of the score lines and apply just enough pressure to break the glass.

Break out all your vertical scores and then all your horizontal scores creating a pile of irregular kinda square pieces.

Step 4: Glue Your Glass Leaves on Your Mailbox

Use your mosaic cutters to cut up the irregular squares producing other irregular pieces to use in creating the outline of your first leaf. Glue each piece in place.

Mark a piece to fit your edge. Cut the piece with your mosaic cutters and glue the piece in place.

Continue gluing on edge and interior pieces to create your leaf. When a piece doesn’t fit, mark it to fit. Then cut it with your mosaic cutters and grind it smooth on your glass grinder. Glue the piece in place.

Continue this process until the leaf is complete.

Score a long slender piece of glass to be used as a stem for your leaf.

Break the score with your running pliers. Don’t worry if the glass doesn’t break perfectly as you’re going to be cutting it into smaller pieces anyway. It’s can be difficult to break such a narrow score perfectly, hence the advantages of mosaics!

Glue the piece in place for your stem.

Continue this process to create all the leaves that will float across the roof of your mailbox.

Step 5: Break Up Your Tile

Time to break up your tile that will surround your floating leaves on your mailbox.

Take a hammer to your tile and begin breaking it up. Make sure you turn your tile over and break it on the back side so as not to damage the surface finish.

Also, break the tiles in the center initially and don’t break them into small tiny pieces as you’ll be using some larger pieces in this project. Plus, you can always cut them with your mosaic cutters if the piece is slightly larger.

Step 6: Glue on your tile

Now it’s time to surround your lovely stained glass mosaic leaves with floor tile pieces that resemble stone.

Lots of your broken tile pieces will simply fit, but then there will be those that you need to mark and cut to fit. When this is the case, mark the piece to fit, cut it with your mosaic cutters and then take it to the glass grinder for smoothing. Finally, glue the piece in place.

Continue gluing on tile pieces. Mark pieces to fit when necessary and cut them with mosaic cutters, grind them when necessary and then glue them in place.

Continue this process until the entire first surface of your roof is completely covered.

Then continue the process for the side of your mailbox. Your first side is complete! Roof and side!  You can repeat this process on the other side of your mailbox.

Step 6: Glue on the Glass for Your House Numbers

You’ll be using the same technique to cut the glass for your house numbers that you did for your glass leaves only you won’t be vertically and horizontally scoring your glass and creating irregular squares. You’re going to cut your pieces out of long slender strips. You need smaller pieces of black glass to create your stained glass mosaic numbers. You have more control to cut these smaller pieces with your mosaic cutters from thin strips of stained glass.

Just as with shaping the pieces of glass to fit within the outline of your glass leaves, mark your pieces when necessary to fit, cut them with your mosaic cutters and grind them on the glass grinder prior to gluing them on.

Step 7: Glue Your Tile Pieces on Around Your Numbers

To finish the door of your mailbox, you need to surround your black stained glass numbers with your broken tile pieces.

When necessary, mark a piece to fit and cut it with your mosaic cutters. If the edges need smoothing, take it to your glass grinder. Finally, glue the piece in place.

Step 8: Complete the Back of Your Mailbox

The back of your mailbox is the simplest and quickest part of this project as we’re merely covering the back with broken tiles. Mark pieces to fit and cut them with your mosaic cutters. Glue each in piece in place.

Time to Grout!

You’ve achieved complete mosaic coverage of your mailbox’s surface. Good job!!!!! Now to pull it all together by grouting your piece creating the look of a stone mailbox. We’re going to prepare our grouting mixture, apply to all the surfaces of the mailbox you just covered and clean it thoroughly.

If you’ve never grouted before, check out my post on how to grout your DIY mosaics here.

Step 9: Gather Your Grouting Materials

To grout, you will need your dry grout, latex additive, mixing bowl, spoon, sponge, garden gloves, old towels or rags and water. I recommend covering the surface that you’ll be grouting your mailbox on with old newspaper or old towels to prevent any staining from occurring.

Step 10: Mix, Apply and Clean Off Your Excess Grout

You’re ready for the actual grouting process. The first thing we’ll do is create our grout mixture to apply all over your mosaic surfaces.

Mix your latex additive with your dry grout until you achieve a mixture that resembles oily peanut butter. Don’t worry if you’ve made your mixture too runny, simply add more dry grout to correct it.

Time to cover the surfaces of your mailbox with the mixture. Cover one surface at a time allowing you to clean it properly with your moistened sponge as the grout will dry quickly.

All surfaces grouted and cleaned!

Step 11: Paint All Other Surfaces Not Covered with Tile and Glass 

To finish your love mailbox we’re going to paint all the surfaces of the wood that are not covered by lovely mosaic tile and glass with back paint. Black paint works best as that matches the grout joints all over your mailbox, It will pull everything together to make it look finished and professional!

Use black exterior paint as the piece will be exposed to the elements.

A mailbox that will be the envy of all of your neighbors! Trust me!

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!

The post DIY Mosaic Mailbox Project appeared first on Mosaics Mostly.

My chosen color scheme for this project is amber and sky blue. I’ve also decided to incorporate some lovely glass blue beads with my scrap stained glass.

You can create mosaic lights out of any type of light fixture. You could use an outdoor lamp post, plug-in night light, hanging ceiling lamp, outdoor patio light, and solar lighting. The possibilities are really endless.

So now let’s get into what exactly you’ll need to make your very own DIY mosaic lamp.

Materials Needed for DIY Mosaic Lamp

• Glass table lamp
• Amber and light blue scrap stained glass
• Blue glass or acrylic beads
• Glass cutter
• Tweezers
• Safety glasses
• Mosaic cutters
• Running pliers
• Glass grinder (optional)
• Clear water resistant adhesive
• Black grout
• Latex additive
• Mixing bowl, spoon, sponge, old rags and a marker

How to Make Your Very Own DIY Mosaic Lamp

Below you’ll find the step-by-step instructions on how to make your own beautiful mosaic lamp at home. Let’s get started!

Step 1: Gather Your Materials and Tools

Before you get started, you want to make sure you have everything you need close by in one area. For this particular lamp project, I decided to use a rectangular desk lamp that I bought at my local home improvement store as my base, but feel free to use whatever base you have or would like!

*Tip: Before getting started, always take a look at your glass with light passing through it so that you know what it will look like when lit.

Step 2: Cut Your Glass

First we’ll start by creating irregular shapes with our sheets of stained glass. In this project, since we are using completely abstract shapes, there is no need to outline or trace any pattern onto your base.

If you are new to creating mosaics and need to learn how to cut glass properly, check out my post on how to cut stained glass here.

First start out by cutting your first color of glass. You can choose to cut the pieces small, large, or somewhere in between. The idea is to have a variety of irregular shapes to work with to create a dynamic abstract design.

After you’ve scored and cut your first color of glass, repeat the process for your second color. If you chose to use a third color, then repeat the process for this as well. In this project, I just used leftover scrap glass I had already from a previous project.

Step 3: Glue Your Glass Onto Your Base

Now we’re going to begin to glue our mix of irregular cut glass pieces onto the base. In this project, I also decided to use beads! You can choose to use whatever material used like to create a different texture throughout the piece, or you can choose to stick with your stained glass.

Intermixing different types of glass such as opaque and translucent is another great way to add in some contrast through your design, and comes out looking very pretty!

You are in complete control of your design here. Just play around by laying different pieces in different ways on your base and see what looks most pleasing to you. Just have fun with it!

*Tip: As your gluing on all of these pieces, you will notice excess glue will seap out around the glass.  As the glue dries, it becomes rubber-like, and you will easily be able to remove it with your tweezers.

What to Do When a Piece Doesn’t Fit

Since this is not a preplanned design, you will often come into contact with pieces that are slightly too long or too wide and just not the appropriate shape for where you intend to put them.

To remedy this, there is a simple process:

1. Place the piece where you’d like it to fit.
2. Mark where the piece needs to be cut.
3. Either A) cut it with your mosaic cutters if it’s small enough or B) score the glass on the marking line and break it with your pliers.

After you cut or break your piece to fit, you also have the option to take it to your grinder to smooth out the edges before gluing it in. This can be helpful if you cut a piece to fit and the edges come out very jagged and irregular.

Step 4: Complete Your First Side

Continue to mark, fit, cut, and glue the rest of your pieces to complete your first side. By now, it should be starting to come together and resemble the abstract design that you have created.

So you’ll basically just be continuing to fit pieces, and cut and smooth them if needed until you have covered the entire surface.

And then your first side is complete!

Step 5: Complete the Other Three Sides

Now repeat this process on the other three sides! Remember, have fun with the design. The sides do not have to match in design; I think the designs being so different is what makes projects like this so unique!

Now, Time to Grout!

You’ve gotten through the first phase of your mosaic lamp project, now you’re more than halfway done! The last portion of creating your lamp is simply prepping your lamp to be grouted, preparing your grouting mixture, applying the grout to each side, and cleaning each side.

If you have never grouted before, check out my post on how to grout your DIY mosaics here.

Step 6: Gather Your Grouting Materials

To grout, all you’ll need is your grout, latex additive, painter’s tape, mixing bowl, spoon, cloth, sponge, and water. And of course your project :). I would recommend covering the surface you are going to grout on either with newspaper or old rags to prevent any of the grout from staining your surface.

Step 7: Prepare Your Lamp to Be Grouted

You want to make sure you’re protecting your edges from the grout. This includes any edge that is not being mosaic’d. This not only created a nice clean edge, but also prevents grout from crumbling into your lamp if your base is an open design like mine is.

You can do this with cheap painter’s tape, or masking tape if that’s what you have on hand. Just apply the tape to the edges as you would if you were painting the trim on a wall. This will create a nice protective border.

Step 8: Mix, Apply, and Clean Off Your Excess Grout

Now you’re ready for the actual grouting process. First, you want to mix your grout. Make sure you mix your grout with enough latex additive to achieve the consistency of oily peanut butter.

Slowly pour the additive into the dry grout mix, routinely mixing them with a spoon and checking the consistency. You may have to add more grout in if you accidentally make it too thin.

Once your grout is mixed to the correct consistency, begin to cover the surface of your lamp with some of the grout mixture. You want to make sure you cover the entire side and get grout into every crevice. Don’t be afraid to use too much grout as you’re just going to be cleaning it off the surface.

After you’ve covered the side completely, take your sponge and wet it, squeezing out the majority of the water, and wipe it over the surface of your lamp, removing any excess grout.

After you’ve wiped the majority of the grout off with your sponge, finish cleaning it with a soft cloth towel or rag.

Continue to grout and clean the other three sides. Make sure you are grouting and cleaning one side at a time to prevent the grout from the excess drying on the surface. Once it dries, it’s a real pain in the butt to get off!

Step 9: Clean Off Excess Glue and Replace with Grout

Once your entire piece is grouted, turn the light on so you can inspect for any areas where glue has dried, prevent grout from seaping in. Use your tweezers to remove the dried up glue, and then regrout that area and go through the cleaning process again, repeating this process until you’ve gotten all of the spots.

This part can be a bit time consuming and tedious, but it is well worth it to achieve a finished and professional looking lamp!

And oila! You’ve just completed your very own gorgeous, abstract DIY mosaic lamp!

Here’s what my finished lamp looks like! Once you’ve cleaned it, you can light it up right away, the grout dries very quickly! If you made your mosaic lamp to go outdoors, I would wait at least 1.5-2 hours before exposing the lamp to the elements outside.

I hope you enjoyed making this! The fun thing about abstract mosaic design is you never know how it’s going to end up until it’s finished! I’ve never made an abstract design that honestly didn’t end up looking cool. Since you’re combining so many different beautiful colors and materials, you really can’t go wrong!

A Few tips:

• Make certain to completely cover each piece of glass with your clear water resistant glue to avoid any seepage of grout underneath the glass.
• Clean the excess glue as you go to save time. Allow the glue to dry slightly and then remove with a pair of tweezers as the glue dries to a rubbery consistency.
• Smooth grout with your fingertip along each connecting edge of your lamp to achieve a nice finished edge.
• Make certain to always wear your safety goggles when working with glass and especially when grinding glass on the glass grinder.

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!

The post DIY Mosaic Lamp Project appeared first on Mosaics Mostly.