Thursday, March 11, 2010

Small Frame Mosaics

Bright sunlight and big picture windows need lots of colorful glass, don't you agree? We have been busy making mosaics the last couple of days. This is a "Waylon's naptime" project--he likes to taste all art materials and I really do not want small shards of glass in his mouth. You can often get small scraps of colored glass from a stained glass store. All the pieces I have were already small so I did not need to cut any glass. If you don't have access to glass shards, or don't wish to risk cut fingers, you can use the little round glass bubbles in the floral department of a craft store.

We used an old picture frame and some Elmer's glue. The clear frame glass was left in the frame as a background on which to stick the colored pieces of glass. We used a few beads and a seashell or two as well. I have found that Elmer's glue works very well on glass for indoor use. Everyone has it and there are no fumes.

I opted not to grout as a final step as you would with a traditional mosaic. We may work our way up to that but for now we are sticking to glue and glass.
For what it is worth, there were no cut fingers, just lots of concentration and fine motor tuning.

7 comments:

  1. Those are really pretty. So you don't have to have clear-drying glue? I'm surprised how well the light comes through!

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  2. We have a box of shards that have been waiting for a project - and this sounds perfect. Although it's simple, I hadn't thought of using the glass already in a picture frame as the background on which to stick the glue - makes perfect sense so thanks for that! Also I've been worried about the glue being strong enough to hold the glass but clearly you had no problems with elmers (which we also have over here in the UK) so that's great! Can you think of a good picture book with a stained glass window or mosaic in it? I always think Satoshi Kitamura's illustrations are like stained glass windows.

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  3. I know it does not seem like it should, but Elmer's glue really does hold well and it dries clear. It is maybe a bit less clear than a glue designed for glass, and if I were going for a more professional look, I would likely use something else. But for the kids I like to keep it simple and safe. As far as a book, thank you for mentioning Satoshi Kitamura's illustrations, can you suggest a title? I would love to find the perfect book to tie into a mosaic/ stained glass project. We were fortunate to have a fried in Maryland who is an amazing mosaic artist. She did a lot of public art and often involved the community. My daughter and I got to help work on a huge mosaic wall inteneded to beautify the construction efforts of a burned down historic building. One of these days I will link to her--her website should have tons of examples of mosaics. (Maria knows Jen!)

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  4. I surely do - we got to be part of making a big mosaic for a new playground, so much fun!

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  5. this is exactly what our outdoor play house needs! thank you for the idea. i'll link to you on paintcutpaste.com when we try it.

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  6. Hi, it does work well with glass nuggetts too (see project we did here http://glitteringshards.blogspot.com/2009/08/making-mosaics-with-children-part-six.html ). For UK people, ordinary PVA glue is fine (probably the same as elmers, maybe that is a brand name in the USA?) - it dries clear. The other thing you can do is tumble glass in a kiddies rock tumbler to take the edges off. Lovely to see some more mosaic crafts on the web :)

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  7. Hello! My preschooler and I just did this project - LOVED IT!!! Thank you for sharing. I've blogged the results of our project, with a link back to your posting, here:
    http://www.camilledawn.com/2010/04/meet-cathrineholm-my-new-flame.html

    Cheers!
    Camille

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