very cool! that looks so festive with the beads.

Hazie

Hey - way cool. I've also used seed beads in grout lines. I used black silicon and stuck all kinds of beads in along the grout lines. Very creative.

Sun, you mean you just stuck the seed beads in the wet grout? Cool idea!

Barb

What is up with my posts? can't figure out why I get duplicate pics, then when I try to delete the duplicates, my last lines show up as if to a link! That's twice now it's happened. Must be clicking too many times or somthin'. Sheesh!

Anyway, this took less time than expected. Tried to do it in grout, but it was way too messy and lost lots of beads. So I did use the clear E6000, not grout, for this effect. If anyone has done it with grout and got it to work without a HUGE mess, please let me know. I think it might work with unsanded grout, but I didn't have any and the sanded was too thick or something. Just didn't work so I gave up on it and went to the gluing. i thought the effect was really neat and wanted to share.

Slow-got pics of your seed bead grout? Would love to see it and hear how you did yours.

Cool, very cool!

Sunshine- for all the balls I have done that were styrofoam I have used silicone, I have used this instead of glue and usually instead of grout. I believe thats how slow and some other have done it. Wrapping the wire around it is soo cool!!!

I am having too much mess with the silicone lately which is why I wanted to try something else. I really hate the clean up. BIG WARNING HERE-don't use E6000 on styrofoam. I tried it and it STUNK REALLY BAD and didn't go away. So, I trashed that one. ANOTHER WARNING-read the label first!! I wouldn't have had so much trouble if I had. DOH!

If I EVER try to mosaic styrofoam again, I'll follow your lead and gesso or thinset it first. I tried several adhesives, and they didn't work so well - some even melted the styrofoam - don't remember which ones now. Here's a pic of the mirror on which I used black silicon as grout and stuck the beads into. Sorry - it's at my DD's and I didn't get a closeup.

I remember that mirror now Slow. I can get a general idea from that pic, thanks! Very nice! Did you break that mirror? LOL, you suspicious at all?

I do think that most times, the thinset just works better. However, it's easy to get mishapen and have to sand a lot if you aren't really careful. And it adds weight to the object-not sure if these ornaments will stay on a tree-will probably need to wire them on. LOL!

Haven't tried Gesso, but I wonder if it might be less sanding and lightweight. What do you think?

SUN: The pieces of mirror were from a treasured antique mirror of my DD. She hadn't put a proper anchor on the wall and it fell off. She told me about it via email and I told her NOT to toss it. She dug it out of her trash and I hardly had to nip it to fit the MDF I cut for the mirror. Wish I'd made it longer/taller. I had hardly begun mosaicing when I made that. Gesso is a great prep for just about any base.