New Glow-in-the-Dark Mosaic Skull! Huge!

Here's my latest beast!  It's not as heavy as you might expect because it's a styrofoam base that I coated with thinset and mesh in 3 layers to form a hard shell over.  The eyes light up and flash red (there's a 2AA battery compartment at the base) and it glows that spooky neon blue! Yes it's for sale :) contact me!

 ^ ^ my band's practice room just happens to be a great place to photograph glow in the dark stuff ^ ^

 this is the underside looking up at it:

Roadhouse and the Big Lebowski tiles!

Here's my latest "Wise Men" tiles. The top one shows the character Dalton from the movie "Road House" played by Patrick Swayze. There's some pretty good quotes in this movie, but "pain don't hurt" has to be my favorite. Below is the Dude from the movie "The Big Lebowski" played by actor Jeff Bridges. Again, there's a ton of great quotes from this movie and this one was sort of a random pick. The quotes have to be rather short to put on one of these 4" x 4" tiles. The above tile from the scene where the henchman have just put the Dude's head in the toilet and can't understand why they've found a bowling ball in his bag.  Anyhow, if you're starting to think of your favorite movies and favorite quotes, and you're looking for a custom tile to capture it, look no further. Contact me at ladyindar@gmail.com to discuss.  Custom 4" x 4" Cinema Quote tiles are $40 plus shipping.

The eyes have it!

Maybe it's because I'm a tile maker, but whenever I'm in a thrift store I can't avoid the urge to buy any and all trivets or frames which might hold a tile.  I take them home, pop out the ugly thrift store tile that came glued into it and proceed to make tiles that will hopefully shrink to fit (I use a porcelain mix which has about 15% shrinkage rate in the kiln).  I kept finding pairs of tile frames so I was drawn to make some pairs of eyes to fit into them.  Here are two of my latest pairs.  They're for sale at Bootleg, a boutique in Chico, CA.  But don't hestitate to email me about custom tile eyes: ladyindar@gmail.com

Wise Men tiles!

Here are some fun tiles I made for my husband as a Christmas present.  The first is the grouchy Joe West from the movie "Eddie and the Cruisers II" and the second is Steve Brule from the show "Brules Rules" which is a spinoff of the "Tim & Eric Awesome Show" on Adult Swim.  He has them hanging above his desk for inspiration.  Here's a column he wrote in which he describes his love for Eddie and The Cruisers II:  http://www.popmatters.com/column/157768-heroes-and-jerks/

Fun Xmas Ornaments for sale!

Here is the 2013 line of Rebel Tiles xmas ornaments!  Each ornament is $10 plus shipping.  Buy 5 and your shipping is free! choose from magic mushrooms, hot chili peppers, blue, green or brown eyeballs (not sold in pairs), skull trees, skulls and moonshine jugs! contact ladyindar@gmail.com to order~

Front page of the Sacramento Bee! Sweet!

Click this link to read the story of the giant gecko mosaic!
Sacramento Bee article: "Giant Gecko Grabs Attention"

Ai Jen Poo tile!

I made this tile for my workers-rights-enthusiast cousin for his birthday and I loved it so much I made one for myself!  I looked up leaders in workers rights and out of the top ten, she was the only female.  I messed up her eyes a bit,  his turned out better.  I often mail off tile gifts before I photograph them. d'oh! oh well, here's the one I kept for myself:

Mosaicking over an ugly old window...animated!

Here's a very brief version of the install in animated gif form. This is my first animated gif!  Pretty exciting for me, excuse the gushing.  Thank you gickr.com for this fun free photoplay.  

Below, here is the swatches laid out on their plastic covered foam boards ready to install>>

Once the glue dried on the backs of the mesh, you can flip the whole swatch over and add the adhesive caulk.  It's best to try to get adhesive on just about every piece.  I used Loctite brand caulk for exterior use.  Carefully lift the swatch up and slowly press into place.  Wipe any excess caulk that comes up and over the surface of the glass with a finger or rag.  Keep your mosaic safe from rain until it's completely dry (24 hours or so).  Then it's ready to grout! 

Mosaicking over an ugly window~

What do you do when you have a super ugly window that you don't use?  This one was covered over on the inside to create a sound proof music room.  You can see the foam glued to the other side.  Super ugly.  I (of course) opted to mosaic over it.  With some clear silicone based adhesive I attached my swatches of stained glass mosaic that I had a few days before glued to fiberglass mesh.  You can do this too!  I was a little surprised how easy this was.  I made 4 swatches about 19" x 15" and then filled in around the mounted swatches.

Giant Gecko mosaic coming together!

Fun pieces of the Lagartija Gigante (giant gecko) are coming together! Man, is this going to be a beast to install!  Roughly 32' tall by 15' wide.  I'm so glad I was able to get these tiles shipped to me in loose form.  They normally come glued together in sheets and then I have to spend hours cutting off the gluey connectors with box cutters or scissors.  Thank you Daltile for sparing me from that miserable job!

Climbing gecko! Coming to Sacto soon!

Here is my approved design for a downtown Sacramento apartment building with shops below.  The bottom of the lizards tail starts at the second floor.  It's three stories tall!  These colors are much brighter than the actual tiles will be.

My new mosaic video! 3 minutes of eye candy!

http://www.youtube.com/embed/w6SBiQYaopA

Efflorescence: The grouters nightmare!

You make a beautiful mosaic, grout it, and then the next day there is white powdery streaks running down off of the grout.  What a mess!  What is this white stuff?  How do I get rid of it??  The white stuff is called efflorescence.  It happens most often when you apply grout in moist and cool conditions.  In my case, I grouted between rains when it was foggy but dry.  The fountain showed no signs of white streaks and was sent out on a truck.  A few days later I went down to do finishing touches on it and saw this:

Those lighter streaks are efflorescence coming off of the grout on the dragonfly mosaic.  If this happens to you, don't panic!  Head over to the cleaning section of your local drug store and pick up some Lime Away .  I'm not sure if other Calcium removing products work, but If they contain similar ingredients they should. Efflorescence is basically Calcium that is leached out of the cement by the grout and surrounding moisture. Pat the white areas with a Lime Away soaked paper towel while wearing gloves.  Better yet, just follow the package directions! This case was stubborn and took several passes but finally came off.

Incoming Help: wear gloves!

 All better now!

Custom Signature Tiles!

I made these custom signature tiles for Laurel True.  Half of them were in Haitian and half in English.  Contact me with ideas and questions!  Don't let your work go unsigned!  I have custom color glazes, shapes, alphabet stamps.

Glow Tiles hit Youtube!

See my fun glow tiles in action! New video!

Haiti donor tiles fit perfectly!

These carefully sized donor tiles were made to size because Laurel True (mosaic maestro magnifico) had left perfect oval holes in her mosaic to put them into later. She sent me some tracing paper sketches and they magically shrunk perfectly to size. Phew! Hooray! These can now be seen in the new Paul Farmer hospital in Mirebelais, Haiti. This is a really great project for a really deserving community. Partners in Health (PIH) offers free healthcare to those in need!

SF Mission: Radical Badical Arts Scene

The San Francisco Mission District is so awesome with all of it's brightly colored murals. I was there recently visiting a friend who lives right in the heart of the mission 1 block from this awesome ceramic mural:

This mural is on a wall of a small kids park that includes an ornately mosaicked dragon kids can climb on. It's tropical and made mostly of handmade ceramic tile. Beautiful!

New Abstract Tile Line up on Rebeltiles.com!

Rebel Tiles has a new abstract tile line available!

They have In-Stock Abstract tiles and a whole slew of abstract tiles that you can order with a custom color in their Custom Abstract Skin Line.

Curses!

I started exploring the Winter attitude that was overtaking me. Recession, depression, disinterest, malaise, and a general uninspired blah settled. And then I got it! The Cursory Mosaic line! I didn't get a lot of interest in these, which is perfect because they stem from overwhelming disinterest! But I still don't get it. These are groundbreaking! I'm sick of people always assuming mosaics are cute hobby based craft. I like toothy dragons and bears, obscenity, and revolution once in a while. Well, I hope I don't cut my own throat with these. There's a bunch more where these came from.

Fountain with mosaic inserts

I didn't get any pics of this beast grouted because my camera battery died on grout day. I'll get another chance at final pics when I go down to Elk Grove to install a few more blue bubble mosaics in the ground there by where the fountain is going. The dragonflies in the below pic went on the top piece for the fountain which is like a round cap that the water will flow out and down from. The great thing about mosaicking onto mesh is you can mosaic at home and then install them all at once. The guys at the cement plant were surprised to see me finish all of the mosaics in just a few hours!
Handmade tile swoops and signature tiles in a variety of green glazes. I have a few custom signature tile designs for sale in my Etsy shop, Rebel Tiles