These are ours, handmade crackle tile, from Subway Ceramics, by Heritage Tile.

Notice the shade variation in each tile. Because the tiles are manmade, and not machine, the edges are not perfectly identical. You need an experienced tile person for installation, in order to avoid lippage.

Subway Ceramics also makes outlet and switch plate covers to match, which you see in the pic. Perhaps your sister can make those for you, too?

@darbuka those are beautiful. I hadn’t thought of the light switches, that’s a good point. I think she is going to do a trial run on a few shapes to see if it’s reasonable. I think we have the same counters (Jet/CA most honed?!)

Chris, my counters are Belvedere soapstone, an extremely hard variety, and bulletproof. Here’s a closeup of the baking center section, with wild green and white veins.

Some sections of the counters…like on either side of the rangetop, have mostly white veins, which Virginia/Jet Mist mimics.

Hand made tiles from Encore Ceramics that I used in my previous kitchen. These would be a bit harder for your sister to try to duplicate as a beginner!

Pratt & Larson handmade tiles I used on my fireplace ... probably not a good one for a beginner either! The hearth tiles were in the same color, but a plain crackle.

Don't forget trim pieces, glazed edges or bullnose tiles to finish any outside edges. You can see 3 different ones in the photo above.

@darbuka those counters are so beautiful! @chispa beautiful tiles! Wow! She is going to play around with some ideas but you’re right, these would be too intricate I think for her. But boy are they beauties.

Darbuka I can see why the backsplash is green toned now. I bet it looks amazing all together. Our cabinets are white w brass hardware and our walls a warm oatmeal. Dining room which is open to kitchen is navy. I can’t recall the names of the colors at the moment.

I am installing Fireclay star and cross tiles with a matte light gray glaze (Halite). I do love that each tile is unique, and some have little quirks that are very charming to me.

This is maybe my 5th DIY tile job, and it is a doozy! The shape, along with my non-flat walls, makes things much more complicated, but it takes me hours to measure and mark the walls, hours to measure and cut the tiles for each section, and hours to get them on the walls and clean the tools. With a busy full time job and 4 kids and other time-consuming hobbies, it looks like it will end up close to two months.

You need to use a grid method and wedge spacers to install since the grout spaces all have to be a bit different. I also spent hours just making sure I had the layout planned well to avoid sliver cuts. Also, if the tile has a light color glaze and dark color base, be careful about staining during cutting. Maybe it’s just an issue with this tile, but when I cut a tile, it seems to accentuate any micro-cracks in the glaze, and if I have to cut that tile for a longer time (multiple cuts, etc), then the clay dust acts like a pigment and stains the cracks in the glaze. I had to throw a few out. Maybe sealing the tile would have helped, but I’m not sure.

I’m about 60% done and haven’t grouted, but here are some in-progress pictures. Trim pieces aren’t installed, and we’ll be putting in shelves, and a faux Roman shade above the window (there are two taller windows just to the left that we decided to match). I think after grouting you’ll be able to see the subtle translucence of the glaze around the edges of the tile, where the clay sometimes shows through just barely.

I hope you go for it, and come back with pictures! If I had a sister that could make my backsplash tiles, I for sure would think of a way for her to leave a little “signature” on one of the tiles :)

@jaja06 thank you for those details! I love that tile and you kitchen is beautiful. My husband is a pretty experienced DIYer but everything I’ve read about handmade tiles makes me nervous to have him install them. So, it’s nice to see that it is possible as a DIY! I’m not ruling out hiring someone just yet, but our entire kitchen has been DIY except for the countertops.

We also don’t have a large kitchen.

I have Pratt & Larson handmade rustic field tiles in color M210. If you look closely, you can see the variation, but it's not dramatic (and the tile surface isn't smooth, but was an intentional choice with the rustic line from P&L):

Have you watched The Great Pottery Throw Down? It's the pottery equivalent to British Bake Off. It is filmed at Stoke-on-Tent which is "the historic centre of British pottery" and still producing products.

In one episode the judges were loving the different colors the pieces got from the glaze depending on where it was in the kiln and what direction the heat went over it. Some were darker green on one side, others weren't green at all. There was a lot of variation. Is that what you want?

I'd talk to your sister about this so you have realistic expectations. Maybe there is a glaze that is more stable than others. My guess is any colors are out if you want fairly uniform tiles.

@aziline, thank you for informing us about the Great Pottery Throwdown! I searched for it on Max (HBOMax is now just Max), and watched several episodes.

As I did a bit of pottery many years ago, I enjoyed revisiting the art, the challenges of the process, and the pure joy of a beautiful end product.

Thank you 😊
You all have such beautiful kitchens 💜 I think I’m going to have her make some samples for me!

We used handmade tiles from Mercury Mosaics. My husband installed them himself, and did a good job, but there is slight lippage here and there. You have to like the signs of handmade versus machine perfection and you will need slightly larger grout lines to avoid horror show lippage. (I've seen the latter with machine made tile installations.)

Our daughter, who has an MFA and is a potter, had no interest in making our backsplash but did encourage us to support a local tile maker, hence Mercury Mosaics which is in our area and allowed us to visit and choose colors, shapes, meet their dogs etc. I'd wonder about the glazes your sister has available for your tiles, her experience level with flat, shaped clay, the kiln she'll be using, etc. so you guys should be talking.

We used 3 different colors, but each of the 3 glazes used was a uniform color. (They had some higher variation glazes that we didn't use.) Here's the photo they sent during the process. We had them place some of the tiles on backing to set the square herringbone pattern. Most of the subway tiles came loose.

Our main backsplash. (You can see some of our daughter's ceramics on the shelves of the glass cabinet.) We have a short running bond pattern backsplash on the parallel counter.

Oooo…. Great Pottery Throwdown! Can’t wait to watch it. Thanks @aziline for telling us about it!

@jaja06 Your backsplash looks amazing. Star and cross is one of my favorites. Love it with your countertops.

Looking forward to seeing your new backsplash too @Chris H

k8cd, thank you so much, that is so nice to hear :) I have Beth to thank for the idea (haven’t given her a proper thanks yet… so Beth, if you’re reading this ❤️😊 can’t wait to eventually show you finished pics) I’m loving it so far, and now just hoping it doesn’t take me another year to decide on the grout color!

I agree, looking forward to seeing what you end up with ChrisH!