New jewelry blanks at Hobby Lobby

New Bracelet blanks at Hobby Lobby

Yep; you read that right! Last week I found some awesome new jewelry blanks (or ‘bezels’) at Hobby Lobby and this week they’re on sale for 50% off (through Sat. 5/22 only!)!!!  YEY!  These ones are GREAT for mosaic jewelry cuz they have deeper bezels than just a flat plate.  I’ve included some pics here; they include pendant blanks, super cool bracelets, earring blanks (incl. clip ons), and, esp. some awesome new hair pins, barettes, and ponies w/ deep bezels!  The price range is only $ 1.47 – $2.99 and that’s BEFORE the 50% off sale this week!

This is GREAT news for those of you that can’t afford to make a big online order or don’t qualify for wholesale prices, or just need some jewelry blanks last minute.  So; head on down to your local Hobby Lobby; I looked it up and they have stores in 35 states (but, alas, no West Coast states; sorry my many wonderful friends there!)!  Grab some, get ur tube of E6000 (epoxy) glue if you don’t have it already, their ear wires & chains are also 50% off, and some millefiori, tile, glass, polymer clay, or paper designs & resin, and GO TO TOWN!

New Hair Jewelry Blanks at Hobby Lobby

I’m excited to share; the NEW Garden Mosaics class at Colorado Free U.  is coming up, starting this Sunday, May 16th! I know I’m totally hankerin’ to do some stuff for my garden; I’ve already got a couple of projects in the works! Would love to see you there, and, if you can pass this on to any Denver area friends you think might be interested too, please do!

Here are the details:

Come join me and several other fun folks to craft your own garden mosaic art piece! Choose from a birdhouse, stepping stone, flowerpot, or plaque, and learn how to embellish it with colorful bits of tile and glass. In the first class, students learn the basics of making mosaics for an outdoor environment and work to complete an original design on their piece. In the second class, students will grout their piece and bring it to life. Leave the second class with sealer to take home and apply later. A wide variety of materials are provided to complete one piece, but students may “upgrade” by purchasing more elaborate supplies. (NOTE: I will have vitreous glass tiles and stained glass tiles to use in this class!!) Information on garden mosaic basics, great sources for materials and supplies, and next-level mosaics will be included in this fun, hands-on course.

Absolutely no previous mosaic experience or ‘artistic ability’ required; come see how easy it is to tap into your creative spirit and learn this wonderful craft!  TERRIFIC stress reliever; you will get ‘lost’ in the work and have a great time!  Make something colorful and fun for your garden or patio so that we can welcome the SUN back to the Front Range this year!

Class consists of (2) 3.5 hour sessions; 7 hours total over two Sunday afternoons; 1-4:30 pm, May 16th & May 23rd, at Colorado Free U. in Lowry (between 6th Ave. & Alameda, off 1st).

Safety glasses are required; bring your own or purchase from instructor for additional $5.

$69 Member (nominal annual membership fee; see www.freeu.com)

          $81 Non-Member

$26 materials fee (without safety glasses); $31 (if need safety glasses); payable in class

         $7 optional materials fee payable in class for upgraded materials

Sign-up at https://www.colofreeu-registrar.com/sdc/regclass.html?class=255572

OR www.freeu.com OR call 303-399-0093.

Wanted to share; went to a super cool wholesale bead show in Denver last week; Rings ‘n Things bead Spring “Road Show”; found some terrific Mexican Day of the Dead things to use in my mosaics & mosaic jewelry; SO glad I went! I’ve already used a bunch of their stuff on two mosaic pieces; a candleabra and a frame, and am working on a mirror! Also got some great ball chain and other chain and cord for my pendants.  Find their show sched. at http://www.rings-things.com/Show/show.php  Great prices, free catalogs, and coupons!  And, they are wonderful people out of Spokane, WA, one of my favorite corners of the country!

BTW:  Have you heard of “The Day of the Dead” (“El Dia de los Muertos” in Spanish)? Wondered what it was all about? Wondered why there are so many skulls and skeletons in the artwork associated with the holiday? There is a pretty good, comprehensive description of the holiday on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_of_the_Dead

I think we can learn a lot from this wonderful holiday and tradition; honoring our loved ones who have passed; remembering the good things about them, seeing death as a more natural part of life and something to not be so feared, etc.  I have been to Mexico many times and visited the wonderful cemetaries, which I feel have a completely different feel than in the U.S. (more positive) and I have seen several of the wonderful altars to the dead, which are incredibly touching monuments to their loved ones.  Check it out and let me know what you think!

Day of the Dead display in Ocotepec, a town outside of Cuernavaca (from Wikipedia)

For anyone interested in learning how to do mosaics, especially anyone interested in figuring out, “what the heck grout color should I use on this thing?!”, I found the COOLEST free online tool that can help you to choose grout colors for your mosaic piece; check it out..(Also; they hae all kinds of other helpful info. & links on this excellent site out of the U.K.)…

http://www.thejoyofshards.co.uk/projects/pr2mirr.shtml

Today, I was prepping some paper-backed tile sheets that I had ordered online (Gems on the Rocks store on ebay) to get them separated into colors and ready in their jars for the next masterpiece (heh! heh!).  I was thinking that it might be helpful to take some photos and share a narrative of working with these kinds of tiles for those of you out there who have asked me about how you “deal” with tiles that come on paper or mesh-backed sheets.

Often, it is easier for a tile manufacturer to mount small tiles onto sheets of paper or mesh rather than trying to count, sort, and ship them in their  3/4″ to 3″  individual pieces.  Also; many tile layers, homeowners, and mosaic artists use the tiles’ sheets to hold the tiles together so that they can be mounted evenly and in larger sections (usually 12″x12″) than with individual little tiny tiles.  If you are interested in mounting tiles by the sheet, there are LOTS of websites and books out there about how to correctly do so.  Today, I’m not going to be addressing those mounting needs, but, rather, when one needs to work with the individual tiles that are mounted on paper or mesh-backed sheets.

I’ll start with paper-backed sheets of tiles; the tiles are mounted onto brown ‘kraft’ paper with a standard white glue that is meant for removal purposes (in the case of mounting whole sheets at once, the paper is removed as the last step of the tile application, just before grouting).  Therefore, the tiles easily come off the paper sheets; easier than you would ever realize if you didn’t know better.  Here I will refer to the step-by-step photos of the process I follow…

Small sheets of tile in Soaker Tub

1) The first photo shows several small sheets (4″x4″?) of 3/4″ glass vitreous tiles, which are often used in mosaics.  Usually, you will see these tiles mounted to sheets of 12″x12″ paper; these just happened to be “sample” sheets of colors from Gems on the Rocks.  I arrange several in either the tub, a sink, or a portable soaker tub like this one here, that I paid a whole $1 for at where else; Dollar Tree! I like the portable nature because I can sit the tub wherever I want and not take up (real) tub or sink room or get gucky water in them.  Some people say to never soak several colors at once because then you’ll have to sort the colors afterward, to put into containers, but–I’d rather make fewer trips to the bath or whatever area I’m soaking them in, and then sort them quickly afterward than make a million trips back & forth to soak each tile color separately.  It really depends on how many different tile colors you are dealing with; if it is just a few, then separate “soaks’ makes sense to me.

Tile Sheets Soaking in (Soapy) Tub

2) Put 4-5 squirts of a regular liquid hand or dish soap and enough hot water to fill the container about 2/3 full.  Let tiles sit and soak for about 1-2 hours.

Tiles not ready to come off paper Sheets

3) After soaking, grab a sheet of tiles and see if they easily come off the backer paper (they should basically slide right off and not leave any backer paper remnants on the backs of the tiles).  If not (like in photo above), let soak for another hour or so and maybe add hot water (this doesn’t happen very often if you follow the aforementioned directions).

Sheets where the tiles easily came off

4) Once you’ve taken all the (now-blank) paper sheets out of the soaking bin and thrown them away, you can now pour off all of the water in the bin (or drain the tub or sink).  (See photo below.)  Be careful to have a drain guard so that you don’t have tiles going down the drain when you do this!  The tiles will remain on the bottom of whatever container for the most part, because they are heavier than the water and will sink.

Pouring water out of soaking tub (tiles at bottom)

Tiles laid out on bath mat to dry

5) Next, after I’ve drained all the excess water from the tub or sink, I spread the wet tiles out onto my cushioned bath mat in the tub (this protects both the tub’s surface and the tiles themselves from inadvertently breaking ).  You could also lay them out on a towel or, if you’re really in a hurry or impatient or just kinda happily OCD, you can take a towel and dry each and every one right away!  What –I– do, though, is leave them to dry for several hours; how long depends on if you’re in a place like dry Colorado, like I am, or someplace a little more “wet”, like, say, the Pacific Northwest (heh!heh!; let’s see who comments on THAT one!).

Pretty, pretty dried tiles, getting ready to be sorted into jars

6) The picture above shows my dried tiles ready to be sorted by color into their respective containers.  For tile-storing purposes, you can use almost any containers you want, but I REALLY recommend using ones that are CRYSTAL CLEAR; I initially made the mistake of getting some that weren’t totally clear and it was a pain in the a*s to try to peer through the container to see what color the tiles were.  I use a LOT of recycled containers; jars are excellent; food jars, health & beauty products, etc.  Because we don’t eat enough on a constant basis to support an all-recylced militia of containers, I have bought others at garage sales, thrift stores, and the dollar store.

Glass mosaic tiles on a mesh-backed sheet

7) Oftentimes, small tiles will also come on mesh-backed sheets (almost always in 12″x12″ sheets).  The photo above shows an example of some glass mosaic tiles that came on a mesh-backed sheet.  See the photo below for the mesh backside of these tiles:

Mesh backside of glass mosaic tiles

So, with mesh-backed tiles, you can follow the same steps as for paper-backed tiles to remove the individual tiles, though you may need to use more soap, hotter water, and soak them for longer (but not necessarily).  However, I don’t even worry about the soaking for the mesh-backed ones; I just cut them away from each other with scissors.  This is a great option for, say, using a patterned tile sheet like the one above to make strips or a border and not have to lay out every single, individual tile.  This also saves you the time and effort of the whole soaking/drying/sorting process and allows you to store the sheets flat rather than to add more containers to your collection (which is like having a bunch of candy jars everywhere, which I love, but, that’s another topic!)  I just make sure to cut as close to the bottom edges of the tile as possible with my scissors or box knife, so that there isn’t any of the mesh bits to stick up through my adhesive or grout and subsequently show up in my finished piece (NOT pretty!).  The photo below shows me cutting the tile sheet with normal scissors.

Cutting tiles from mesh-backed sheet

As usual, I hope this has been helpful, and, if you have any related tips or cautions you’d like to add, please do!  Also, always feel free to post any related questions you might have; I’ll give you the ‘ol teacher’s mantra; “There are no dumb questions” and, “If you have a question, there are probably several others who have the same question.”

Hey, Denver area folks: Sign up Now: The first “Tile Mosaics for Beginners” class starts this Friday…if you’re off during the day (or just “off” in general!), come, hang out, learn a new craft, and have a great time!  You can register here:

Fridays: 2/5/10 & 2/12/10; 9 am to 12 pm
https://www.colofreeu-registrar.com/sdc/regclass.html?class=254871

­$69 / CFU members (nominal annual membership fee); $81 / non-members. $21 required Materials Fee ($26 if no safety glasses) Includes everything you’ll need to make your beautiful take-home art piece!
$7 optional materials fee if you’d like upgraded tiles and materials

In this fun and fully interactive course, learn to make your own mosaic art piece. Choose from several project bases (stepping stones, address number plaques, frames), which are included along with tiles, adhesives, grout, and sealer. Use the wide array of colored ceramic tiles provided or upgrade by purchasing more elaborate tiles and other fun items that can be used in mosaics. First class, students learn the basics of breaking, cutting, arranging, and adhering tiles and have their design completed. Second class, students learn how to grout their piece and complete the grouting to “bring their piece to life”. Leave the second class with sealer to take home and apply later.

Would love to see you come out!  Class is located at Colorado Free University’s Lowry campus; off Quebec and 2nd between 6th Ave. and Alameda.  For more information, you can call their office at: 303-399-0093 or visit their site at:

www.freeu.com