• Mosaic Holiday Ornament Kit

    I have designed a base kit that people can use to make a mosaic holiday ornament, and I plan to sell the base kit at the website. I designed the ornament base relatively quickly due to business demands, but I have spent at least 10 years thinking of how I would design mosaic kits or…

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  • The Importance Of Repurposed Downcycling In Art Studios

    In my previous article about how to cut cement board for use as a mosaic backer, I explained how I didn’t buy carbide-grit jigsaw blades for this because I re-used my worn-out wood blades for this once they became to dull for wood, and that it didn’t matter that cutting the cement board destroyed them…

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  • How To Cut Cement Board

    Two Types Of Cement Board There are two types of cement board: The first type contains wood fibers or wood particles mixed in with the cement. The second type is portland cement between two sheets of fiberglass mesh. The second type is completely water resistant, and that is what we use in our mosaics when…

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  • How To Store And Reuse Dust Masks

    Mixing up grout and thinset require that mosaic artists wear dust masks on an occasional basis. I wear an N95 particulate mask, which is the same one I wear for sawing wood with power tools and many other shop and studio tasks that involve non-oily dust. An N-95 captures 95% of the particles of a…

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  • How To Color Grout

    This article is about coloring grout for mosaic art before the grout is applied. This article isn’t about staining grout for bathroom backsplashes. From what I’ve read, staining bathroom grout doesn’t tend to last but has to be refreshed within a year or two. If I wanted to change gout color, I would remove the…

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  • How To Build Up Low Areas With Thinset Mortar

    Low areas on a surface can be built up with thinset mortar mixed with an additional aggregate of very coarse sand a few days before tile is laid. This should be be done if you want to put a mosaic insert of thin glass tile (1/8 inch) between thicker architectural tiles like 3/8 inch stone…

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  • How Much Grout Do I Need?

    This is not a straightforward question because most of the grout does not end up in the gaps between the tiles. Instead, there will be some grout on the sides of the mixing bucket, on the mixing tools, on your gloves and last but certainly not least, on your worktable or floor. This last place…

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  • How To Mosaic a Patio Table

    Replace Glass Top With Concrete Board Glass-top metal patio tables can be used to make a mosaic table by replacing the glass top with 1/4 inch concrete backer board. The concrete backer board is roughly the same thickness as the glass top it is replacing, and it can rest on the rim of the metal…

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  • How To Mosaic Bar Countertops

    This article is about how to incorporate mosaic art into the design of your tiled bar top and is less about the basics of how you mount the plywood, cut a hole for the sink, etc. If you need that type of basic construction information, there is an article on HGTV’s website about how to…

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  • How To Photograph Mosaic Art and Paintings

    How To Photograph Mosaic Art and Paintings

    Not too long ago, I included a request in our email newsletter for customers to send us pictures of their mosaic art. I was pleasantly surprised by how incredibly good some of the mosaics were, but I was more than a little bit disappointed to see how poor some of the photographs were. To be…

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  • How To Copy A Mosaic

    An Easy First Project? Many aspiring mosaics artists decide to copy an existing mosaic for their first project instead of making an original design on their own. Usually the person goes this route because they have no confidence in their ability to draw or their artistic abilities in general, or they believe that this decision…

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  • How To Mount A Mosaic Tile Nipper For Easier Cutting

    It is easy to mount a mosaic nipper to a scrap piece of plywood and extend the handle with a short piece of conduit or pipe. Extending the handle in this way provides mechanical advantage to the nipper so that much less downward force on the extended handle is required to cut a hard piece…

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