Tile Mosaic Girl

I have great news for those of you in Denver (and other relevant areas) that are always looking to finding glass vitreous tiles locally for a decent price! I visited the Highlands Ranch location of Floor and Decor this week and found that they are now offering 12×12 sheets of glass vitreous tiles for $1.99 each! That means you’ll get about 144 three-quarter inch square tiles on one 12×12 sheet! MUCH cheaper than the little bags of 20 or 30 glass vitreous tiles at Michaels, Hobby Lobby, or Jo-Ann Fabrics for $4.99-$7.99 or more!   You may or may not know, but glass vitreous tiles are the most commonly used tesserae (or material) used in arts & crafts mosaics in the U.S. today.  They are easy to work with, not sharp on the edges, great for indoor or outdoor mosaics, and available in a variety of colors and finishes.

Of course, Floor & Decor doesn’t carry every single color or texture out there, but they do carry quite a few.  I encourage those of you making mosaics to get over there and get some before they stop carrying them (nothing they stock is really guaranteed to be carried forever)!  They come on the 12×12″ sheets, but can be easily pullled or soaked off (as explained in one of my past blog posts).  I took the pictures below with my camera phone, so the color quality might not be great, but I figured they’re better than nothing.  The different colors included with the different mixtures of solid colored tiles are: periwinkle blue, aqua blue, white, off white, tan, brown, black, teal blue, turquoise blue, light aqua blue, forest green, light brown, and dark tan.  The styles w/ the metallic streaks running through them are $4.49 a sheet and came in forest green w/ gold and dark blue with gold.  There was also one style of a neat clear glass, color-backed mosaic tile sheet that had the “crystal murrini” type tiles in about a 3/8″ size. These sheets are $8.88 for a 12×12″ sheet.

I’m happy to share that Denver’s Channel 2 “The Deuce” did a feature story on my Garden Mosaics on their ’Everday’ Show Monday, July 12th.   The segment was on Garden Mosaics, how they can brighten up your garden, and my Garden Mosaics classes.  They had me  demo how to make a mosaic stepping stone step-by-step.  They also showed some video of garden mosaics in my yard to show how they can really ‘perk up’ your surroundings. The video of the segment is on their website  if you’d like to see it.  Thank you so much to Chris, Mary, Nina, Marjean, and everyone at Channel 2 for the opportunity!

Here ye, Here ye!  There are still some openings in tomorrow night’s Tile Mosaics for Beginners class at Denver’s CO Free University Lowry campus!  Only (2) weeks; 7 hours total; 6-9:30 pm for the next 2 Wednesdays.  Come see what the excitement’s all about when you take this fun and informative class; register online now!  Recent students comments;

“This was a great class–I can hardly wait to try another piece at home!”; Jennifer, Littleton, CO.

“Krystie Rose obviously loves what she does as an artist and her enthusiasm was evident in her teaching”; Sheila, Littleton, CO

“Krystie Rose is GREAT! She shared Everything she knows, was exact, encouraging, thorough, and very easygoing”, Kate, Denver, CO.

The “Mosaic Jewelry: Tiny Tesserae Treasures” Class next Monday night is ALMOST FULL!  If you’re interested in this class, be sure and sign up now!  Mosaic Jewelry is fun to make, quick and easy, and you get some immediate gratification by completing a piece of art in a short amount of time.  Like the other mosaic classes, you don’t need to be some big “creative”, artsy-phartsy person; just bring your desire, open mind, and willingness to learn, and we’ll have a great time!  This class is only one night and you’ll leave with one or more fun jewelry pieces!

New Fair Display Walls!!

OMG! I am SO excited! I found some great stuff today on my latest trip to the Habitat for Humanity Resale Store in Denver.  (They have stores located across the U.S. and Canada, all of which benefit Habitat for Humanity’s excellent program.)  I often find great grout, caulk, and tiles at the Resale Store, much of it donated from home improvement stores when the manufacturer decides the new season calls for a new shade of ‘white’.  This time, I was looking for something to use as a fixture in my upcoming summer fair booth that I could hang my mosaics on; like a vertical wall that’s freestanding.

Well, hallelujah, I’m here to tell ya, I found the PERFECT thing for it and I am SO excited! It’s a brand new set of bi-fold doors; 2 sets of 2 doors adjoined by hinges, that can stand upright very well, but I’ll hit Depot for some kind of L-brackets to mount on the bottoms so they have some support on the floor for the weight of the mosaics.  These ones are perfect because they’re brand new, unfinished, completely flat surfaced, and 6 feet, 8 inches tall!!!  And, for a zippy lil price of $45 for all 4 doors, they more than fit into my fair ‘budget’.  I thought I would share this ‘find’ of both the display option and the Habitat stores, if you weren’t already aware.

Closer-up of new display walls

I also scored an awesome wooden display cube that I can use as a riser or a double shelf for displaying tabletop items.  This one’s great because the depth on it is at least 12″, which is much larger than most riser-type fixtures.  And, at $5.00, ya can’t beat that!One more thing I found myself not being able to leave at the store was the most awesome, super-duper, cool, yummy-rific, bright baby blue, ceramic, completely in great shape, TOILET!  Yes; you heard it here; I AM going to mosaic a toilet and put it in my backyard!  The tank’s going to become a planter and the bowl will either be a birdbath or have a fountain in it!  It was only $35!  I canNOT wait to be able to start gluin’ on that baby after the fair and get it in the yard for summer!!!

'Fish Bowl' by Jean Wells

Barbie Pink Toilet

Garden-y Mosaic Toilet

Fun Sunny Mosaic Toilet!