Carli had asked me to make mosaic letters spelling out the baby's name. She had a basic idea of the way she wanted them to look. We discussed size, colors, and fonts and I went to work.
Each block is about 8 inches. She wanted each letter to be a different color with the same color flowers in the background and the letter being the darkest shade. The fill and grout color is white on all the blocks.
Originally I was going to try and make a flower that started with the same name as the letter (ie: E = echinacea, N = nicotiana, etc), but with the tiny space per block it was too difficult to do properly with the tiles I was using. Instead I went with "fantasy" flowers. The one exception is the letter "I", which is green, so I did an oak leaf and an ivy leaf. In retrospect I should have just made green flowers. Oh well.
On the back of each block I put an alligator hanger. Then Carli said she really wanted to hang them using ribbon so I attached "D" rings in each upper corner. That way she could hang the blocks in a jumbly fashion and not worry about getting it crooked. The alligator hangers work well if you have a level line. Another idea would have been to put the letters on a narrow shelf.
I haven't been doing much of any projects lately since I've been watching the baby every day now. (I finished this project last month after most of it was done a couple months ago!) The baby is extremely active now and getting into everything so I really have to watch her.
I think by summer she'll be ready to start riding the pony, at least with a lead line to start. That will be fun. Another little girl corrupted! Hee hee!
4 comments:
WOW, excellent job Grandma! I liked your idea about the narrow shelf, maybe just one on a shelf and at different heights on the wall? I saw in a magazine a real small shelf (maybe only 6" wide) with a matching color frame around it, then they had a vase with flowers on the shelf, I loved that look. So now I am seeing your 'art' up on the tiny shelfs!
Patti
Wow, those look GREAT! I especially like the bright colors! Where do you get the cracked glass bits you used for the mosaic? I don't know enough about mosaics/tiles/grout, but maybe it's something I could try doing when we move into the new place and I actually have room! Great job!
~M~
Thanks Patti and ~M~.
The tile is from a regular tile store. It's the same tile you would find on a bathroom or kitchen wall, etc. The little round glass beads are from a hobby store, like Michael's. If you are interested in doing some mosaics I would recommend taking a beginners class if you could. I did some mosaics on my own and later took a class. I learned a lot of things I wished I'd known before so the class was really worthwhile. Otherwise at least take a look at some "how to" books.
Mosaicing is really not too hard unless you start getting into more intricate designs and start using different types of materials. I do enjoy doing some of the more challenging designs on occasion. Most of all it should be fun! ☺
Thanks for the info...I'll be sure to post some pictures if I get to it in the future. :-)
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