Mosaic Dragonfly

This was so much fun to do.  The eyes are flat marbles and the red spots are plastic beads from a necklace and the rest is made up of glass tiles.

Dragonfly

Gazing Ball

Gold tiles

I was in an art and craft shop and saw this polystyrene ball approximately 6" across and decided to experiment and mosaic it.  I had seen alot of balls mosaic-ed(!) but wasn't sure of the base.

Moving on . . .

I experimented with all sorts of different shapes and sizes, some tiles were ceramic and others glass.  It was such fun.

See the tiny bead from a bracelet

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One Kenya Shilling

Grouted and finished

 I was really happy with the way it turned out.  After grouting it was heavy and very solid.  I have now placed near my pond in my garden in Kenya.

Easter Egg for My Daughter

This one turned out to be much easier than the first one and was such a pleasure to do.

Substrate is clay

Daisies

More daisies!

Ready for Grouting

Ready to be filled with Chocolate Eggs!

Easter Egg for My Son

This Easter Egg is for my son . . .  The plan is to fill it with tiny chocolate eggs!

The substrate is clay and as you can see the top can be separated. 

Glass marbles

The Silver Hand is the Hand of Fatima, or Hamsa, which is the sign of protection against the Evil Eye according to the Islam belief.  The five fingers represent the Pillars of Islam.  The Christians call it the Hand of Mary and the Jews, the Hand of Miriam . . .

Hand of Fatima

I used beads and glass tiles for this.

Other types of beads

This is where the chocolate eggs go . . .

Grouted and ready to be filled for Easter

Owl

Feeling bored one day at home and the need to do some 'mosaicing', I rummaged in my kitchen cupboards and found this bamboo chopping board which has a loose handle and decided to do an Owl.  This is for my Mother-in-Law who collects owls in any shape or form.  

The start

I drew the outline on the board and had the owl sitting on a branch but later found out that I had no suitable tiles for the branch so went to Plan B and gave him legs!  Cutting the square tiles and forming circles was quite challenging but I think the result speaks for itself.

Progress

I now wish I had made the centre of the circle in the wing slightly larger to have more of an effect.  Another lesson learnt!

Ready for Grouting

 I covered the board around the owl in masking tape to protect it from the grout.  I had done a frog on a rock previously and didn't protect the rock and the frog had a white film around it . . .

Masked Owl!

Finished

Ready to take home back to Kenya for Polly!

Did you know that at group of Owls is called a 'Parliament of Owls'?

Guinea Fowl

Before we came to Bahrain we had pet guinea fowl wondering around the garden in Kenya, scratching around and making a racket - I really miss them!!!

The Start

Started of sticking dark grey tiles along with 'pearls' from a necklace which my mosaic teacher kindly broke up for me.

Head, beak and eyes

A lesson learnt on the way - while sticking beads USE LOTS OF GLUE so they don't come off when you are cleaning off the grout!

Background complete, now ready to grout

 I decided to do the grouting in black so the white of the pearls would show up ~ still not sure it was the right decision

Finished!

Another one for the verandah . . .

Mosaic Porthole

The porthole from the bathroom needed a border around it as it was covered in cement and looked very untidy so I had a circle cut out of plyboard to fit around the porthole.  Again, using tiles from the renovations - floor tiles and wall tiles.

The Start

Bits and Bobs

All the way around the circle I added pieces of souvenirs I had collected over the years . . .  Sand dollars from Malindi, Obsidian from Mt Longonot, seeds, a fossilized fish vertebra, old pennies and a rubber snake from the kids toy box!

Fossilized fish vertebra

Can you see the snake?