WONDEROUS! I seen no reason not to use it, just start converting into a complimentary filler as you get to it! MM yep you got it going on girl!!!!

Wow! you are sure not afraid of color, unlike me!
Wish I could be so brave! I just bought a couple bags of those rocks today, I'm really anxious to play with them.
You have a great start.

Hazie

Super beginning!! Wish I had the nerve to just jump into abstracts with that sort of success! BTW, to keep from having to constantly dig out your screw holes, just stick a short piece of dowel rod into the hole, or a length of soda straw. Problems like THAT I can solve - abstract is a whole 'nother story!! LOL!!

Loving what ya got done and looking forward to drooling over..uh..I mean seeing more pics

Oh, MARYMARY, this is beautimous! You WILL inspire me to do my backsplash. ORRRRR, yours would match my mostly sage-and-red kitchen, just ship it to Arkansas when you are done! I'm sure I could make it work! heehee ;)

MM, so glad you got past Go. I love those orange plates. Looking good. Can't wait to see it complete. Great start.

You have a bright and colorful flair!!! I like it!!!
I like using the little stones, too. They are nice fill.. and add a different texture, too.
And I particularly like those blue pieces... with the greeny "eyes" on them!

I must say the wait on you to take the plunge was definetely worth it....you are a NATURAL!!!! This is going to be great......you have to use this...it's just about IT! As a person that loves color, I would love to have this in my kitchen....keep chugging away...this is just awesome...love the vibrance of it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, first newbie lesson: double-check that the backerboard fits before you start working the piece. Just held it up to the wall, and it's ever-so-slightly too big!!!!!!!!

Fortunately, I didn't run the pieces right to the edge, so I can save it. Phew!!!

You are off to a great start MM, now aren't you glad you finally started working on something??? Love the bright colors you are using.

Barb

By the way, have to laugh at the DH, who was not thrilled about this whole idea. He came in the house (I had this whole mess set up on the bar earlier today), looked at it, and I could tell just by the look on his face (basically a blank look, but one of those "you know you're nuts, right?" looks...the one that says LOUD & CLEAR: "Wow, I think I might actually like this...but they'll never say that) that he was ok with the idea.

He actually said: Do I need to build you an arts & crafts area in the basement?

Then after I held up the project to the wall, and figured out that it was too big to fit, I brought it in to him and asked "how am I going to slice the side of this off of here?" To which he replied: "You just finish it and let me worry about how to fix it."

I love him.

OMG....how SWEET! He's "into it!"

Holy snot dawg MM!! You done stuck sometin' down!
(And I can tell the excitement in your post). See?? You just needed to jump in. Great job so far. I think your hubby is quite impressed with you.
You go girl!!

Another hubby gets roped in :-) Love your color combination and fearless use of different textures, designs and colors. It all comes together so nicely! Beautimous!!

It's got the WOW factor! Love it.

I think you are off to a great start. IMO, if you are doing a large area, go ahead and be fearless with
your texture and color scheme, but I would choose a tessera or 2 that I could get my hands on enough of to
repeat elsewhere. It will bring a type of cohesion to your work.
You have a very good sense of grout lines...nice spacing.

Well, Katie, shut the door! Glory be, if you aren't the cat's meow! That is absolutely an amazing beginning for one that took soooooooooo long to get the nerve to put it down w/glue. Girlie, I feel like this forum has just delivered a baby. It was a painful birth - just to read and feel your fear - I wanted to come to your house and make you do it. Congratulations on a wonderful project, and for doing it so well that your DH fell right into it. Oh how nice it is to see the happy couple playing w/their toys. Ahhh, another two lives swallowed up in this wonderful art form.

MARYMARY, your hubby's comment actually brought tears to my eyes. I'm NOT making this up. That was so sweet. I'm so VERY glad he likes it. Isn't it wonderful when they get "into" it also? I told my DH just yesterday that I think he would enjoy gluing glass. So far he has just picked up a few things either for me to mosaic on or to use as tessarae. But some cold snowy evening when we're out of rented videos... :)

very, very nice job and so much appreciated because just yesterday, I started a post but deleted it cuz I didn't have any pictures.
I have a plan........
a very daring plan that I know I will come up against resistance with.

and now that you have paved the way, along with others here, I just may go ahead with it.

I want to take down all the cupboards in my kitchen..paint and mosaic a very large part of the wall, instead of just underneath the cupboards, for a backsplash.

heck, I figure that it's my place and I can do whatever I like and I like the idea of open shelving..the chrome kind, with lots and LOTS of color in here.

I've been looking at these and letting my mind wander and plan...
it all got inspired when some paint started to peel away from the wall..fairly new..2 years old, brand name paint..
and from that, to serious ideas..
now that I see you in progress and even using the same/similar type of dishes...heck, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
I'm logging off and grabbing my camera, for some 'before' pictures to take.
good job and best to you!

Becky .(*_*).

Great job!! Yep your Hubby is hooked!! Great guy. Take him up on building that art and crafts room!!

Maria

Mary,I think it is fantastic my gosh girl you sure you just started this???I like the white tile because the greens match what you have going on,it is looking great,just use some of the white tiles here and there .you're doin a great job!!!Wow!!!!

You go girl!! Its gonna be great. Give your hubby a big kiss!!!!! Im glad you got it started!!!

Seaglassic- long time no post!!!! Glad to see you posting again...better still to see you doing a wip!!!!!

Hey MM Looking great!! I think when you get some more tiles/pieces placed around the white focal tile you are concerned about it will not stand out as it does now.

Love it your hubby is also going to be helpful for you. Very cool!!!

Chris

Thank you everyone for the wonderful compliments! Yes, this truly is my very first mosaic-anything...but I have to admit that I do have an artsy-fartsy nature on the other side of my accounting-brain, and did a lot of art stuff in HS...no mosaics, though, and I failed miserably in the sculpture lessons. But the lessons in "negative space" are proving valuable in this venture.

At any rate, I do have a question about my adhesive. If you notice, there are a lot of thick ceramic pieces being used, as well as some thinner china. I'm having to do some SERIOUS building up of the china pieces to make them as level as I can get them with the ceramic. Very often, the tiles are set in at somewhat of an angle if they abutt both to one of their own kind, and a ceramic piece (I use my finger to test how level they are in relation to the abutting pieces, and squish them down into the "bed" of thinset on the side that needs to go down) It's working ok, I guess, but I feel like I'm using a TON of thinset.

Is it common to have to use so much adhesive? I realized about 2/3 of the way down this piece that I had gotten so used to the building-up thing that I was putting WAY too much thinset on the thick ceramic pieces, and it was squishing out the bottoms.

Is this just a learning-curve thing, or do you find yourself heavy-handed with that frosting-bag, too? I just don't see so much glue on everyone else's work.

Great job so far and love all those bright colors . It is fabulous your dh is on board. I don't use a ton of adhesive, but each of us will have our own method and technique. You don't want there to be so much adhesive squishing out of the bottom that it is filling up the spaces where your grout will go though,
Cindy

uh oh.
Well...er, hmmm...on that, I can say that I was careful to at least dig out a 'valley' for it (the grout), even when the adhesive squished out, or I had to make a bed of it to build up an entire section of thin china. There are some spots where it squished about 1/2-way up the side of the thinner china pieces, since they were 'embedded' in the thick bed of thinset that I had to build them up on.
Am I safe as long as there's a valley for grout in there, even if it doesn't go as deep to the substrate backing?

Me thinks that Mary is not so contrary as one thinks!!! Do you know what color grout you'll use? If it's the same as the mortar, then you're laughin'! And no, the grout doesn't have to go down to the substrate. Lucky and blessed are you with DH!!! This is going to be over the top wonderful!! Did you see Klinger's kitchen??? Veeery nice!!(I drool every time I go to her house!!!)

Dunno on the grout color; I always lean towards black...I love the look of stuff on black backgrounds (no, my house is NOT filled with black velvet pictures of Elvis & waterfalls- LOL!)

However, that brings me to my next question: Anyone ever used different color grouts on the same project?

If you butter the back of each piece with thinset using a craft stick instead of the baggie you can control the amt of thinset easier,or at least I think you can,That way your only building up your thin pieces to match the thicker ones and your only getting a little bit on the thick pieces,not so much to worry about digging out.I use a lot of china and I always use this method.Your doing a great job tho so if your comfortable with the bag keep using it??Annie

I have used different colored grout several times, my
daughter's heart mirror was the last one. I actually think it's much easier to paint the grout after it's finished, than to do different colored grout. But that's just me!

Hazie

Love the backspash. You are doing a great job as a Newbie! Take a bow.

Here is a chickadee done with 3 colors....(Klinger gave me the cement leaf!!!)

Here is a link that might be useful: {{!gwi}}

Just a quick update. Finished this section. Here's a preview of where it will be (mounted in this space at the top of the wall) I left space at the bottom to marry it to the next section without any obvious breaks.

{{!gwi}}

Not that you really need to see this, but here's a wider shot of the space:

{{!gwi}}

As my granddaughter says "oooh, pretty!"

Can't wait to see the finished product :-)

Lovin' this MM! Waiting for more.....

That is looking great!!!! Your colors are matching wonderfully with the counter!!!

it's gorgeous in place! If it were a wall hanging I'd go black grout but since this is the backsplash neutral is probably wiser... grey or tan

MM, that is a real splash of color in your kitchen. It sure looks great and will be even better when you grout it. Looking foward to the next piece.

Looking beauteous!
I'd probably go with a grout as close as I could get to the counter color. It would tie in the whole art piece to your kitchen.

How BEAUTIFUL - another truly traditional mosaic. LOVE it. You're doing a fabulous job.

WAY TO GO!!! EXCELLENT JOB!!!

Love it....would just make me smile every time I walked into the kitchen with the cheerful bright colors....bringing sunshine in the kitchen on those cloudy days..you're doing a great job..!

What a great job you're doing! Love the mix of colors and materials and that "curve" thing you got going on - ties it all together.

Love your colors, it is so cheerful looking and will really ad a huge amount of character to your kitchen, great job,
Cindy

Next question...my mosaicer co-worker suggested taht I mount these pieces all at once, and grout it all vertical because of the colored grout, and likely not getting the same color on each section (or on those screw-hole pieces) if I don't do it all at once.

I figured if I've got pre-colored grout (ie, not something I have to mix up the color myself), then it won't be an issue...straight from the box...same color, and away I go.

Is this not the case? Am I going to be forced to do this whole thing vertical to get consistent grout color?

Grout it flat if you can. The grout color should be consistant if your not adding colorant. It really looks GREAT! I love all the different materials in it....another reason to grout it before hanging it...it will be really hard to do on the wall. You are doing such a great job.... you can no longer call yourself a NEWBIE!

Hazie

Grout flat much easier ,it will be close enough in color you can't tell.it is so bright and beautiful great job!!I would go with other colors in your kitchen then black this time...can you but tex rite grout in your area? There is a color called moon stone by tex rite that goes with everything.

OOOOO- -AHHHH--- look at these grout colors I found! I don't suppose anyone here has ordered direct from INDIA before??? LOL

Eshan Industries Grout shades

MM you are doing a fabulous job. I agree, you can't call yourself a newbie anymore!!!

Barb

Newbie?? Naaww! OLDIE BUT A GOODIE!!
Looks great MM!!