Bakercourt - Knitting, Sewing, Crafting.: mosaic

Further Adventures in Concrete (and Mosaic)

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

I have been working (slowly) on a few crafty projects around the house and am starting to finish things. Hurray! This past week, my mosaic house numbers went up on the wall. I love these - they're bright and cheerful, with just the right amount of sparkle to tell passers by that this is our house.

Our house that still needs a lot of paint and DIY!

I was very lucky to have my aunt visiting from South Africa: a very knowledgeable and multi-talented mosaic artist whom I roped into glass shopping with me, and then had to look on while I asked a thousand questions about getting things just right.

I designed the numbers in Photoshop and then sent the image off to be laser cut out of 3mm MDF by The Laserworks. Sarah, owner, designer and laser cutter extraordinaire, is just the loveliest lady, happy to accommodate all of my mad schemes and so helpful. The numbers were ready to pick up in a few days. They're quite large - about 30cm tall.

The glass is stained glass from Glass Studio Supplies, a glass studio in Wickford. It's meant for glass fusing but the colours and swirls are perfect for mosaic too. I bought "tops and tails" glass because you can pick and mix in their studio, but you can order online and they also have much larger sheets if you need a lot of one colour. Nip, nip, cut: thousand of tiny glass pieces were jigsawed together to create rainbow numbers, and then grouted in white.

There's a lot of cleaning in mosaic. More than I remember. But it's worth it. After the third (or fourth?) time cleaning the grout off the top of each glass piece, it shone brilliantly and was ready to be screwed into the wall! I love that we can do permanent things like this - before, we had always rented and had to contend with landlords who didn't want anything on their walls. Definitely not permanently attached rainbow numbers.

And as for the title - Further Adventures in Concrete - it's from Peppa Pig. It is a book that Daddy Pig reads to his family one night at bed time to get them to go to sleep. It works after only one page. I think of that every time I see these numbers, remembering the experimental tile grout and trying to get the mix just right!

Birthday

Happy Birthday Finnlay!

Thursday, June 01, 2017

We've had a whirlwind of activity here in the last few weeks, so much so that I've hardly had time to sit down and catch up! Most importantly, Finnlay turned one. Big boy!

A whole year! It's amazing to see how different he is to his big sister at the same age. He is stronger, bigger, more demanding. But he is also less confident, more affectionate. The sweetest little boy. He loves his sister, his family. He loves Peppa Pig. He loves saying "go". He has an amazing abundance of love to give, and approaches everything with a soft kindness that amazes me.

We made party hats, party food, a lion cake. We blew up balloons, wrapped presents, invited tiny friends to play on a bouncy castle.

I haven't spent nearly as much time in front of a computer as I normally do. It is a wonderful thing. These days I spend most of my time making soap, playing in the garden with the children, attending markets or exhibiting at shows. We paint, we play in the sandpit, we chase Finnlay around as he climbs anything taller than himself - the slide, steps, chairs. I do spend some time doing work work, but it's wonderfully liberating to be moving away from that.

We've also been doing events, including a huge market at Southend Festival, loads of soapmaking, family visiting from South Africa and visitors staying from the West Coast, we've had the summer arrive with gloriously hot days and long sunny nights, and an occasional moment for crafting.

Here's a sneak peek of what I've been working on: a house number made with cut stained glass. I hope to put our stamp on our home as we slowly transform it from an ancient mosaic of different styles and eras. There seems to be an endless supply of walls that need stripping, wallpaper that needs peeling off, and layers upon layers of old tiles that are coming out. Small projects like these rainbow-coloured house numbers are an excellent way to feel like we're making progress in amongst the never-ending big jobs.

Finnlay turning one marks a year that we've been in this house too - golly, a whole year! Next on our project to-do list is: bedroom cupboards (oh the promise of the luxury of storage!) and a new bathroom to put in a shower upstairs. How exciting. Watch this space.