after school twice a week in grade school, we would ride the bus to my grandma's house - all the granddaughters 5 of us. We would have twinkies and milk, then start classes on sewing, croqueting, knitting... but my absolute favorite thing she taught us was to decorate styrofoam balls for xmas deco, using pins strung with beads and sequins - OH HOW I LOVED the shiny baubles and glitz. Time went on and I found horticulture and made it my life, but one time maybe 10years ago I bought a book on garden mosaics... poured through it for years now but when I wondered into the junkyard with my table base/arbor idea - that's where I saw Slowmedown and her incredible delectible mosaics, and she's sooo encouraging - I knew I had to finally give it a go. Hey what could go wrong with so many wonderful mentors to answer all my questions. I love glass - it's so wonderfully gawdy and I'm certain that if my gram had ever tried it - she'd have been just as sick as the rest of us! LOL

This will be fun to hear how everyone "caught the bug"! I have been doing crafts for as long as I remember! I guess I started in Bible School when I was 3! Tried about everything, quilting, stained glass, cement leaves, quilling, watercolor paint (found I have NO talent here), faux finishes, furniture reupolstering/refinishing, brazilian embroidery, tatting, (the last two are still sitting unfinished in a closet, I can't throw anything away!) Homemade paper, paper pulp in molds, stamping, and now the favorite, and most addictive to date, mosiac!

What an interesting question; these are great stories. Hope we hear more. Mine is not so interesting. At first I couldn't even remember. I used to do a lot of cross-stitch; then I couldn't see that well anymore. And after kids, I couldn't concentrate enough to not loose count. Did a little other needle work, polymer clay and stamping. Wasn't all that good at it. Decided to put in stepping stones when we got a pool. Had some leftover tiles from those terra cotta pot kits the kids got one time. The kids and I sat down one afternoon and made one for them and the dogs with their names on them and I was hooked. When I looked around, I had bunches of terra cotta pots and bird feeders and bird houses and other stuff that was just too plain!

I had to get a stress reliever after my son was diagnosed with cancer.......long LONG LONG story..won't waller and bore anyone.......we lick our wounds....but wacking and cracking is the best therapy for me..........and my son is doing good..so I'm doing good! I had dabbled somewhat before the "phone call," but now if I didn't have my mosaics and smashing times...I would be bloody nuts...but it is what it is.....and God is good! And, my family does not waller...we love to laugh.....and my son and I did the best we could through so much pain and chemo..AND I left my husband for six months to be with my son..high and dry!!LOL....like the WitsEnd saying, Life is a mosaic...you pick the pieces?" Just feel blessed that your child has not been affected by such a gut wrenching thing...! I wish it were me. We all have our bumps..........but you just gotta get up and go!

stjohnsgypsy -I know how you feel, I got "the call",too. My story didn't end very good. The condensed version is on my "my Page" thingy.

I've told these ladies before, and those on the junkyard, they saved my sanity. Something fun to think about.

Anyway, that's the end part of my story! The beginning is when I was 7 and my Aunt Mary taught me to knit. In my teens I picked up crocheting from my mom. Still knit when I need a hat or mittens. Crocheted a few afghans last year! Tried cross stitch (tedious),plastic canvas. About 10 or so years ago I saw an article in one of the women's magazine about mosaics (I guess they did a flower pot). I got a few books at Michaels and I was off. Been times in-between where I didn't do many projects, But I knew I would always get back to it.

ItÂs so great to have friends that understand!!

Maria

I learned to cross stitch, make candles and wreaths from my neighbor when I was 9. I loved that lady and wanted to be just like her. She baked, gardened, made everything and was a wonderful person. The memory of her will always stick w/me. As I grew into my teens I learned to do leather work and bead. I embroidered my clothes and made my jewelry. I always wanted to paint but as far as drawing I was seriously lacking. I wanted to do a mosaic when I had my 1st baby but instead started working at a bead store and making and selling jewelry. I always talked about mosaics and whenever a cup,bowl,plate or flowerpot broke anywhere around me I would keep it. We moved into this house a year ago and at the time I was teaching scrapbook classes and selling stamps and what not and DH ran into my boxes of broken stuff. He asked if I was going to use it then gave me a bit of a time limit before he was going to throw the stuff out. I then went to a friends house and she had a gorgeous mirror her friend mosaiced and I flipped. She said she always wanted to but never did either and so she lent me her books. I said thats that!... and now I havent stopped. DH is kicking himself now!

*Sorry so long Im a talker if you havent gussed.

these are compelling stories....

I know that the earliest days of crafting was age 8, second grade, when my parents let me and a neighbor girl friend walk to the hardware store alone, to get copperwire and tape.

we had gotten a book at the library on doll making and decided we would make our own dolls.
(back when it was unheard of to be kidnapped on the roads)

we came home, put the copper wire in the shape of dolls, wrapped them all upwith torn sheets, taped them over the wrapping and covered the heads with nylons..single nylons. no panty hose then.

painted their faces and tore up fabrics to dress them.
my doll was so UGLY but she is still with me...lol

5th grade, a teacher said it was important for all kids to learn to knit..boys included.
I got some purple yarn..learned to cast on 10 stitches and knit and purl, back and forth..
when it was about a half a foot long, I was out on the playground and one boy in the class came up to me and said..
"you're going to be a good gramma, some day"

I have always remembered that.
6 kids of my own and coming up on #6 grandkids..due in May
I still knit.

I've done tiedye shirts
hemp and beaded necklaces
, crochet
, crewel embroydery
, plastic canvas
, water paints
, acrylic paints
, stuffed animals
, pen and ink drawings,
, sew baby clothes,
, square dance clothes
, black powder men's shirts for rendesvous
, latchhook rugs
, ceramic clay sculpture
, cast cement leaves
, ham radio, morse code fast speed
, tying flies for fishing
, air brushing
, special effects makeup (masks and makeup)

and for all the hobbies I've done, tried and left..now, the favorite and special place in my heart is the mosaics

started when I found a terra cotta pot in a second hand store, with just the top border half done and a very messy job..I thought....some day I want to do this...but a neater job of it.

until now, I had only been breaking and storing all the dishes and supplies, hoping for the day to arrive, that I would get so immersed in it, that nothing else would matter.

that day is here.

Becky .(*_*).

My grandmother lived with us for years, when I was little, and she supported herself with her crafts. So I've crafted for as long as I can remember. We even made things with cookies we baked!
My stepmother taught me to crochet when I was 8, and I made hats and scarves and blankets from age 8-15. I tried my hand at sewing...just wasn't my thing. I make my own window
treatments...but that's about it!

I played with plastic canvas, sculpy and tie dying for a little while. Then I got into floral sprays. I did that for years, and moved to wedding decorating, then to coordinating weddings. Then to home remodel and decorating.
I did a few mosaics then, a couple flower pots, and a kitchen table. I rocked my BBQ with stone, and did the tile
on my kitchen backsplash, and the urge to mosaic was hitting hard. I saw the cutest little mosaic birdhouse Momof6 made, in the garden junk forum, and jumped right in again. This time with a kind of madness! I have had a project one right after the other since this summer.
When I discoverd glass......the sickness got real bad!
There for a while I was redecorating my house every year,
and that was kind of a sickness for me.....so now I have
this new illness...and I'm enjoying this one so much more!

Hazie

My mother got me involved in ceramics and pottery and introduced me to everything in art - nothing fancy, just the basics - when I was growing up.

In 1975, we received a catalogue from Lewiscraft which featured paints which you could use on glass. We had a door which had a solid glass pane from head to foot in the livingroom and I asked if I could do somehing with it. She took a chance and ordered the lead strips and the paint.

The door was in an area where people would see it. The sun would shine through in the morning until 2 pm. I lined my design with the lead and created tulips - my mother's favourites.

To this day, I can still see those tulips when I close my eyes. The house has been sold twice since we moved, but the door with the stained glass still remains and the owners are always glad to see me drop by.

Mosaics are a bit different, but when doing a piece, somehow I find myself back where I was during that time.

My first memory of a mosaic was when I was about 4-5 and my grandma and I would walk down the alley to her cousins and they would have coffee. I would always sit in the driveway becuz they had stepping stones imbedded with marbles in it and I would sit and run my hands over the marbles sitting in the sun. Funny how tiffy's story made me close my eyes and saw myself sitting there.

My mom has always been crafty and luckily I got her gene for that. Most of what you have all listed I have tried but mosaics have been the main one for about 11 years now. Just wish I had more time, but I will enjoy my kids and BF and remodeling a house and starting a business and someday I can spend all my time on mosaics.

I remember my aunt teaching (and teaching and teaching) me how to crochet when I was a child. It was with very fine thread and thin hook. I could never control the yarn and hook.
I embroidered hand towels for wedding gifts as a child and then learned how to cross stitch, did crewel work, knit (not well), quilt, and on and on. Thirty years later, I still have a beautiful crewel floral that I made for my parents. When my mom passed I asked my Dad for it and had it professionally framed.
Later I discovered decorative painting and now have a bazillion bottles of craft paint. Then I found polymer clay and rubber stamps. Can you see that I am addicted to crafts? Then SLOW (who else?) started talking about mosaics and it wasn't hard to talk ME into it. I was living in NH and we would e-mail photos. At the time I was breaking up dishes because I was afraid of glass. Have the times changed! Now I almost exclusively use glass.

Wow, lot'sof interesting stories, and lot's of artistic talent here too. I also grew up always making things. Sewed lots of clothes and made dolls, did lots of bead work, embroidery.My bed room floor always had seed beeds scattered on it as a teenager. Did dough art, panty hose people,tie die, now my big thing is cement work and mosaics. I started the mosaics to do in conjuncion with the cement work, I thought they went together beautifully. Been doing those about 7 years now I guess.I also got "the call" about dh a few years ago and now it is truly a great stress releiver, although so far all is turning out okay.Love my gardening too.
Cindy

I guess crafting is in the blood for us all. As a young child I would play school with the neighbor kids and, of course, I was the teacher so we made crafts. I had one hard back craft book that was my "bible" - I still have it. Next to my elementary school there was a community center that I could go to paint ceramics - ones that I'd like to smash now and use in a different way : ). Then I sewed from middle school through high school.

When I was a young mother, my girlfriend and I were craft queens. Whatever we could find we did - crochet, crossstitching, macrame, etc. Then we became parent education volunteers and taught parents how to make educational toys out of throw aways - egg cartons, milk cartons, lids, etc. We wrote a book to sell at our workshops.

I became an elementary school teacher and there were always opportunities for crafts and art fun. I left teaching to get my doctorate and spent a few years in academia. This was quite a dry period with no creative outlet.

I started getting into photography a few years ago (which I still enjoy) then we bought a house near my cousin that has done stained glass for years and had just started mosaicing. She got me hooked and we are just nuts. We do stained glass and mosaic but both agree that mosaic is the preferred art!

So glad I found you all because I have learned so much in such a short time.

Wow what a bunch of amazing stories. Some defiantly brought tears to my eyes. I have been purposely kind of avoiding this post..I never got to do crafts unless they were in school I loved doing art, my Mom had six kids and a alcoholic husband who thankfully ended up in the Penn...I tried to be as quiet an unnoticable as possible...well then I grew up got married..still no crafts...I would help my son make things but still no hobbies. My mom did try to teach me knitting but Im a lefty and she just couldn't show me how. My ex decided he was bored and didn't want to be married anymore...I was also pretty sick at this time and inhind site guess I can't blame him. He had a sick crazy wife who he couldn't handle. I divorced and met a new guy married him and started getting sick again...this time really bad (by the way I was had a non-toxic goiter and was SEVERLY hyperthyroid) to where I could not sleep or get rest unless I was literaly knocked out....I had so much nervous energy I had gone to michaels and was looking for something to try...anything to prevent me from going crazy with all this energy inside of me that could not find an outlet....well I made a mosiac tray...a butterfly and gave it to my sis in law. She loved it....it felt sooo much like comeing home...all the talents I don't have combined with all the talents I do have made me a very good mosaic artist.....I'm not trying to say Im the best there is cause no no no I am not but I know what I make is good, and I can see myself evolving. I still have the ug ug ugly mosaic I did for the first time on a cement paver. I will keep it forever. But mosaicing is so much me....I am shy by nature but when I make a project I have my confidence and know that I can hang around with the rest of you gals and talk shop...because we realize we have a talent....and we love it!!!

Ok this is like amazingly long and I apologize...I even edited out a lot of it!!! Oh well....life is long sometimes...I plan on leaving some of my soul in as many places as possible!!!!

Donna

Hope you don't mind me adding why Mosaics will be part of my future. I didn't start young in crafting like y'all did, but funny thing as I look back on my childhood....I collected every pretty little rock or piece of broken glass I could find. My little treasures. So maybe had I known about mosaics then, I might not be just starting now. I started crafting 20 yrs ago, when I was 40, by accident. Not much money and wanted to give presents to friends. So I made simple wood things (dog related, like welcome signs and leashracks). I was encouraged to sell some, and did occasionally on eBay.
When my youngest son was severely burned in 01 (age 28, his patrol car exploded) I needed to keep my mind busy all those months he was in hospital. A close friend suggested learning beading and making jewelry since that could 'go with me'. I did that for about 2 yrs but don't "love" it.
I wanted to go back to my wood crafts, but stress had worsened my fibromyalgia to the point that sawing and sanding is now very hard on me. I need an interesting hobby tha causes me less pain. When I joined Garden Junk and started seeing all the ladies there doing mosaic things for the yard, I found myself really getting interested in it. I bought some books and supplies, tried doing a few small things to just get the feel of grouting and whether I wanted to get serious with mosaics. I do. So I jumped over here to start reading and learning on this forum--- which has been wonderful. I was an active person and now can't be, but mosaics and GJ should keep me going with doing stuff I enjoy. I've stopped thinking about what I can't do and am thinking of what I can. Thank You for helping me and inspiring me, and I really hope to truly join you soon with showing things I've made.
Karen

wow, reading these stories... it's clear that this art is very theraputic for all of us in alot ways.

As a mother of still young children, my heart is just wrenched by the thought of how it would feel to get such a "call"...

Chickee, I can relate to your story. Early in my adult life I started to suffer from anxiety and panic - my poor husband... It's been 18 years since my breakdown. Can you imagine married one year and your wife drops her basket! lol

I haven't done any art or craft for many many years and got my creative outlet from gardening but it just feels soooo wonderful to make something just for fun now. To bring pictures here and get the kudos and support... it's very special. Thankyou you all. And now I won't make everyone nutz waiting for halloween and my chance to MAKE something! well... LOL

I just came across this thread and thought I would add my story. I was born with crafting blood. My mom and my dad's 4 sisters were all crafters/artists. My godmother taught me to embroider at the age of 3. My mom would make my dresses and my godmother would embroider them. One aunt played piano, another scrapbooks and the other knitted.

In HS I had a wonderful art teacher (Sr. Eileen Mary, may she RIP) that took us through all printing arts from intaglio through carving linolium to make our own stamps. Painting (acrylics, watercolors, oil), Ceramics (making not breaking, LOL)

I love cross stitch, watercolors, ceramics, and now mosaics the most. I've been planning/drawing ceramic projects for 2 years and finally made my first one during the fry pan challenge this year.

P.S. Desi really impressed me with "morse code fast speed" because morse code is something I've always wanted to learn!

I taught myself how to do stained glass through library books in 1989. The closest glass store was about 90 miles away, so when I went there to get my supplies, they would answer questions and give me encouragement.
After a while I had accumulated a LOT of scraps. First I did kalidescopes, but then I discovered mosaics!! Now I'm mostly doing mosaic and once in a blue moon I may do a window!!

I love that this was a thread someone found! Very moving stories!

I have always crafted, won some awards at my age level (grade school through HS) for some paintings. I took after school art classes. (hubby had no clue about any of this.) Had huge encouragement from everyone to carry on the artistic persuits but life got in the way (parents split up) and I was persuaded to get a degree where you get a salary and benefits-dumb move, social workers get paid squat! So all artistic pursuits went away as life started coming at me. Got married, got divorced...you may know the story...fell apart put myself back together, better, stronger, faster. :key music:

When I married my current husband I became a stay at home mom and found myself looking for stuff to do besides pondering what to clean next. I started cross stitch and my eyes about fell outta my head. I started gardening and redoing the overgrown yard I inherited when I got married-made lots of mistakes but it was fun and artistic. He kept clearing land and I kept planting. Then I started getting my son involved in doing gardening with him and painting stones etc. I even made specialty cakes for my kids' birthdays and people started asking me to make them and that got way out of control-kitchen overflowing with cake pans, and it was lots of time. Then I was watching a gardening show and someone did a terra cotta birdbath. I figured I could do that for my MIL for Christmas. On another gardening show someone had done the birdbath but used old china and grouted it. I again thought, that would be even better! I made three birdbaths for family members in the following months, and they turned into mosaiced birdbaths, one with the Cape Hattarras light house and one with a flamingo and palm trees. (The first one was just busted up tiles and painted and stamped.) My husband and I bowl and one day a ball he had in his car cracked so he he threw it into the flowerbed by the driveway. At first I was irritated and waited for him to move it. After about a WEEK, I started to move it myself and decided it didn't look so bad. I looked up bowling balls online and found the gardenweb trash to treasure site. I had fourteen bowling balls that we no longer used and I found something else to glue and grout!! So, I am hooked and totally lovin' trying to find out if I can do some of the stuff I have seen here and on other websites. Thankfully it's been a very joyful experience and ya'll teach me something new everyday! Thanks for sharing your experiences and your stories!

goh you guys have such great stories mine is a lil different I pretty much taught myself my step grandmother taught me how to use a sewing machine so i guess thats close as i ever had to a role model in this area when i was PG with my DD I started keeping a scrapbook I found one that had journaling pages and photo pages and the co. i ordered it from sent me a new package every month with new pages for pics and stuff it came with all the paper etc. it was so cute I love flipping through it rmembering all of it and tha was my first hobby scrapbooking from there I did faux finishes in every room of my house, I played arround with polymer clay for a while,I have done almost every paper craft you can think of. you name it and i have probably tried it but mosaics has been the one thing i have stuck too most things get lef behind and forgotten while mosaics keep pulling me back time and time again maybe because its never the same twice even if you tried no 2 peices would ever be exactly the same and for me I never really know how its going to turn out i just start cutting and sticking and let the glass do the work for me I kind of make it up as i go along so the outcome of the peice depends on my mood

Bumping for the newbies!! What's your story???????

I'll bite :-)

In January of this year, my birthday rolled around and I said "Self - you've loved the look of stained glass all of your life and you're NOT getting any younger ..." so I found a stained glass class at our local university and signed up! Fell head over heels in love with stained glass and immersed myself which continues to result in lots of glass scraps. Being a tightwad I hung on to them and then found you guys!

Although I've always sewn, cross-stitched, crocheted, quilted, calligraphy, etc I've never considered myself artistic, just crafty. I don't come up with a lot of original ideas but I'm an excellent copier and love to learn so this place has been a great fit :-)

What a great topic; I missed it the first time around. Well, let's see if I can condense this story . . . I have always been artistic and crafty; don't know where it came from. When I was very young, around age 6, I started sketching and would spend hours lying on the floor drawing hands or feet or fashion dolls or flowers. Taught myself to embroider and crochet. My childhood was terribly overshadowed by a violent alcoholic father and I was very withdrawn; my arts and crafts helped me through those years. As a young adult I was occupied with marriage, parenting, and working full time. I was awarded $35 for a suggestion at work; I assumed my husband would want it to be put toward paying bills but he surprised me; he suggested that I buy art supplies. So I bought acrylics and canvas and brushes and started painting. So I painted for many years. Then a few years ago, a dear friend of mine asked me to do a faux finish on her walls. I was scared but I did it, and it was a great success. Then my daughter bought a round mosaic tray at an antique shop in Phoenix. It fascinated us both and we thought, hey, we could do that. I ordered a mosaic kit on line; it was terrible, there wasn't quite enough grout to cover the flower pot, and my pieces were too far apart and had sharp edges; it was awful. So I was driven to mosaic something else and do better. I have been doing mosaics for 8 years and I love it better than any other creative pursuit. When I see beautiful dishes, all I can think about is breaking them. Stained glass fascinates me. Jewelry such as brooches exist only to have the pin broken off the back. I am totally addicted to mosaics. I think it's so cool that each piece is unique and that the things I create will be around after I am gone. Whew!

Well, I grew up with the least artistic Mum in the world:) My Dad was quite artistic, but there was no crafting anywhere in my childhood. In school, I Enjoyed art and ended up going to art college and studied graphic design. I never felt that I was especially creative or brilliant, but I really enjoyed doing it - we used to cut and paste, hand set metal type etc - a bit before computers came into the mainstream. After a while, computers became the norm for everything I did, and I found that I just wasn't satisfied with doing design anymore - I really missed the hands on creating something physical. Anyway, I found myself with a few months off and was looking for something to do and found some books on mosaics (while I was looking for something else). I discovered that all that cutting, nipping, gluing, placing etc. really satisfied me, I haven't felt this enthusiastic about anything for years and years! I'm in the middle of getting ready to move so I've had to put my newly discovered passion on hold for a few weeks - it's killing me:)

Well not quite a newbie, but IÂll bite.
IÂve always been the artistic type and every job IÂve
ever had was luckily a creative one. Window displays,
photo styling, fashion productionÂthen I got married, had 2 wonderful little munchkins, bought our first
(and only so far) house and became a stay at home mom.

I didnÂt know an Oak tree from a Rhododendron when we
first moved in about 16 years ago. So that gratefully
gave me something new to learn. I was closing in on my last bit of patience with Barney the purple dinosaur
and the Ninja Turtle dudes.
So I learnedÂand learnedÂand learnedÂbecame a Master
Gardener , volunteered a lot , was hired as a Hort Manager then left after a few years to start my own design
business. In the meantime the kids grew.

My oldest was graduating from high school and we still
had the old original bathroom that came with the
houseÂand IÂm talkin OLD. So I was introduced to the
wonderful world of tileÂooooooÂaaaahhhhhh.
Then glass tile! There was no stopping me at that point. Started the learning process all over again.
Substrates and thinsets, caulk and grout.
Finished the glass bathroom, floor to ceiling and in parts ceilingÂI loved it! Then I put it all aside, seeing as the bathroom was finished and all.

Then about a year later (last winter) I was hit with some strange medical stuffÂso now IÂm on MS watchÂyech. Perfectly fine so far, but thought that I may want to rethink this garden design stuff, plus working for other
people was kinda taking all of the fun out of it. So I jumped right in. I had been on the Design forums here for awhile and eventually found you guys. This is where my mosaic story beginsÂ

bump

I didn't think I had a creative bone in my body until last winter when a friend taught me how to mosaic a birdhouse. Well, that did it. I was hooked. I want to branch out to other mosaics and am learning so much from all of you. Here's a couple of examples of the houses. The second is made from an old decanter.

I Love the Pink birdhouse!

I remember when I was 7 living next to an older couple (Paul and Marie) They had the most beautiful gardens and they lived off the $$ they made from making candles, wreaths, quilts, dried flower arrangements and jewelry. They taught my sister and I to make candles and wreaths and I swore I would be like that when I grew up. So, growing up I learned to cross stitch , knit, crochet, scrap book (against my will at first) and bead leather. I got a job at Rings n Things and fell in LOVE with beads. I learned to make all kinds of jewelry and after seeing a customers mosaic site, started saving up broken plates, cups, and tiles because I really wanted to mosaic next. I was at a nieghborhood party about a year and a half ago the the womans house was filled with beautiful mosaics! I told her I had always wanted to learn to do it and she handed me a book and said "so do it, Why wait?" A week latter I had a horrible little tree glued to a broken piece of wood and once I grouted it you couldnt see the tree but I was in love anyway! Now thats just about all I do in my spare time. Obbsession is not even the right word for it. When I am at work I will mosaic everything in sight in my mind, including my coworkers and customers faces! Am I the only one who does this?

I guess I am going to revive this thread again.

I have always loved crafts since I was little, thought first thing i remember is making a decopage purse.

Regarding mosaics, as i posted in another thread, i got hooked when i researched different tile for our new pool bathroom. I found all these gorgeous shades of color and ordered from several online sites sheets of irridescent glass. We had a fight with the tile guy when I wanted to do the the floor but I won, and we got a different tile guy.

I bought a batch of loose glass tiles from one of these mosaic sites, and made my mirror that you see in the butterfly thread. I am hooked.. Big time

So here is our pix. If you notice there is a blank spot by the side mirror medicine chest. I plan to mosaic a sea turtle soon. Just not sure of colors

hope those aren't too big pix. And we still need to put up shelves, glass in the shower, but basically we are done

I come from a long line of crafters and gardeners. My grandmother could do anything....she used to sell her stuff at the flea market and as a kid, I thought that was the coolest thing.

I pretty much tried all the crafts that my mom and grandmother excelled in (sewing, painting, needlework, etc), but found that I didn't really like doing most of them, and I wasn't nearly as good as they were, which discouraged me.

When we bought our first house in 2001, I became heavily involved in gardening and loved it. After a few years I was tired of spending money on garden decorations only to have them fall apart and fade after just a season or two....so I started turning trash into treasure, which progressed into mosaics, which progressed into stained glass. Now, I just need to start selling some of it to help support my new habit...LOL

I visited this thread earlier in the week and cried (just a bit); just read it again today and shed a few more tears. Mothers, grandmothers, sisters, neighbors, teachers, children, aunts, friends, stepmothers, sisters-in-law, . . . you are all awesome; you rise above the mundane and you lift up the little children with your creative spirit . . . okay, I am going to go find a Kleenex now.

I guess it all started when my son married and moved out four years ago. I decided that with both my kids out of the house I would finally have fun and do all the things I've always wanted to do. I started a garden club and when looking for a craft project for the club I decided that I've always wanted to try mosaics so I posted the step-by-step directions I found on the internet and read lots of tips from all of you. Since then we've made a few projects and I want to thank all of you for your help.

You all are so awesome and like some of our club members we have overcome lots of battles and laughed and cried together.
I look forward to spending lots of time on this forum with such nice, talented people.
Carol Ann

I don't show up here all that much. I've been DIY-er since I was old enough to sift through a trash can and walk to a yard sale.
Anything old and broken that I can make look like it belongs to me is dragged home and dissected & re-directed. I love vintage 50's china patterns and have always found lots at thrift stores. I have my own "pattern" I save as my "good dishes" but I love so many more. The dishes I find are often odd singles with chips and cracks. My hearth was the first project I did with mosaic to incorporate some of my dish pattern finds. Since then I've mostly done stuff for the garden, since I am a gardener by heart.

GGG