Finished Projects

I finished a few projects I've been working on somewhat simultaneously. There are two mosaics and one hypertufa trough.

The first mosaic I did was a quickie. It was something I've been thinking of doing for a while that involved hearts in the basic primary colors and secondary colors. I've just been waiting for the perfect time to do them, which meant when I felt like doing something fairly simple and uncomplicated.

I had a little piece of backerboard left over from previous projects and thought it was the perfect size. I just hate to waste any kind of material! I measured the width and divided it into six fairly equal sized spaces to put the hearts. The hardest thing about this mosaic was trying to decide the order of the colors. I went ahead and started with red, then orange, yellow, etc. It probably wouldn't have mattered really, but I liked the way the lightest color ended up in the middle.

Then I spied the railroad spikes I collected from our family vacation a while back. I really wanted to do something with them and I started to get an idea in my head. I found a piece of 2X12 board and played around with it a little, and ended up with a heartfelt coat rack! I ground the tips of the spikes down so they were thinner around, but they still split the wood a little when I put them in. I repaired the split with Gorilla Glue, made the pilot holes a little larger, and then used more Gorilla Glue to help hold the spikes into place. It worked great.

You may or may not have seen this picture from my now deceased flamingo flock (plastic doesn't hold up very well to our summer sun or dumb-a** vandalizing kids).For some reason I've always liked this photo. I thought I would attempt to transform it into a mosaic. Once I found the proper colors for the flamingo (I used three shades of pink and a shiny and matte black) I was able to get started on it.

I've been trying to think of how to frame the mosaics I make on backerboard. The spike-heart helped push me along in my thinking process. Whether for better or worse, I'm not sure! So without buying anything new and using just what I had on hand I was able to make a frame that mostly fit the flamingo.

The wood was fairly plain so I thought I'd spice it up a little and gave it a washing of the same colored grout that was very watered down. I let it sit like a wood stain, then brushed most of the bigger chunks off. After it dried I gave it one coating of a clear polyurethane product.

Now for a new problem. I had Gorilla Glued the hearts onto the wooden board, which means unless there is some serious prying going on, the hearts are staying inside the carved out board. I wanted something less permanent for the flamingo, so I had to figure out how to get it to stay in the frame without gluing it to the back.

I made a quick trip to Aaron Bros. Art & Framing to ask for suggestions. Besides, I needed to get some hanging wire and d-rings for my custom frame! When I explained my problem the solution was not what I thought it might be. I was thinking some sort of putty or rubber cement that could be peeled off. The man at Aaron Bros. asked if my frame had a "rabbet". He showed me what he meant. If you're like me and didn't know what a rabbet in the frame was then I'll attempt to explain it. It's a portion on the front of the frame that is cut or routered out so the piece fits inside without falling out. Then in order for it not to fall out the back, there are retainer clips to hold it in. For me that meant I had to essentially put another frame onto my original frame, making sure the opening was a bit smaller. I found some thin oak strips left over from neighbor Dean's boat makeover and treated them the same as my frame, with the gray grout treatment.

Here's a picture of my frame while it's being epoxied together (I don't have the proper size nails or clips to make a proper frame!).

And the end result! Oh, it's too bad the photograph doesn't do the frame or mosaic justice!

The third project I worked on recently was another hypertufa trough. This one is just a little bigger than the last one. It's big enough to fit a baby!

On this one I used a slightly different recipe--just one part cement to 1 1/2 parts each perlite and sphagnum moss. This made it a lot lighter weight than the first, even though it's bigger.

I also gave this one a little bit of a different look, scratching lines in the side. I just did that because it was done to a trough in one of the books.

So there you have it. It may seem as though I'm idle, but I'm really not!