Happy Birthday Limey Steve!

Steve is the awesome drummer of my band and he puts the limey in Limey Tee's, his tshirt/printing shop. His nice accent and love of fine English cheddar inspired me to make him this for his birthday.

Details, details...

I hand made the clock face and the Bellflower sign. Did you know that writing the Roman numeral four has other options besides IV? I did a google image search for Roman numeral clocks and one person wrote "Roman numeral FAIL!" but apparently it's acceptable to write it IIII. Anyhow, I set the clock to read 11:11 which is my husbands and my anniversary. Awww...

Finished the clock tower mosaic!

Two down, three to go! The Bellflower clock-tower may look easier than it was. My first thought was "all black with a colorful sunset, not a whole lot of detail," so I figured this one would go a little quicker than it did. There's actually quite a bit of nitty gritty detail here. And sunsets are just plain hard. The stained glass I used for the sunset is slightly thinner than the black porcelain tiles too so we'll have to pay attention to that during grouting.

Finished the downtown Bellflower mosaic!

This is one of five panels I've been commissioned to do for the outside of a live-work loft in Bellflower, CA. I'm now working on the second one which is of the town's clock tower.

Storing your mesh mosaic for travel

Get yourself one of those handy under-the-bed-sized plastic storage tubs or whatever will fit the pieces of mosaic the way you've sized them. Lay down some plastic sheeting in the tub cut to size, and gently lift your mosaic-on-mesh piece up to see that all of the pieces are in fact adhered. If any pieces come loose or were never actually glued, then simply lay the piece back down and glue the piece back on. When the glue is dry and all the pieces are secure, lift the mesh-mosaic sheet up, and gently place it in the plastic tub face up. Lay a sheet of plastic over that and continue to layer each sheet of tile with plastic in between. Believe it or not, I fit my entire 5' x 6' downtown mosaic into the tub shown here. I packed plastic bags into any free spaces, slapped the lid on, and I'm on to the next mosaic panel!

Labeling each mesh mosaic piece for later install

Once I cut all of the mosaic into pieces, I labeled each one using 3" x 5" index cards and low-adhesive painters tape. I labeled them from left to right and top to bottom so the installer will have a clear idea of which piece goes where.

How to mosaic onto Mesh Part 4

Once your mosaic is finished and the glue has dried, cut along the previously established guidelines (Sharpie lines) so that your mosaic is a bunch of large puzzle pieces. Each piece should lift easily off the plastic.