Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Charge it up! - Mosaic Letter

Back in the day, when mosaics were all the rage, I was one of those folks breaking tiles and dishes in the garage and tiling everything that I could get my hands on.  I still have several creations and am actually planning on hanging a few in the kid's bathroom.  Once that's done I will share ... I know... it'll be a while.  I wish I wasn't so paranoid about hanging things on the wall!

Anyhow, with cement, epoxy and grout... as well as shards of broken ceramic everywhere, making traditional mosaics is a very messy craft.  So when I recently saw this mosaic-inspired mirror, I was inspired... a fun project with a lot less mess.  You can find the tutorial via Craft Stylish.

What you'll need:


expired credit, membership & gift cards, cut into squares & rectangles --lucky for me, The Mister is a pack rat and has collected over 10 years of expired cards... I think he's been waiting for me to cut them up for him! :)
utility scissors
paint
cardboard letter... or frame... or whatever you want, really!
tacky glue
a few bowls if you want to sort by color

I bought this cardboard letter at JoAnns for less than $3

I spray painted the letter white... because that's the only color I had onhand. Blue or red would've been more dramatic

I cut and sorted the credit cards tiles by color... unfortunately, most of the cards were gold or silver, so I really had to use the color "tiles" sparingly





Just a few tips...

To avoid sharp corners, I used the rounded corners of the credit card for the corners on the letter

For a clean mosaic look, try to keep the spacing between each "tile" uniform

Keep your scissors handy for those tricky spots where you may need to cut a custom-size "tile"

No need for perfect squares or rectangles.  I think it looks more interesting when there are different sizes and shapes fit together like a puzzle.

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