Weekend Garden Craft Party

I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend!  I sure did!

On Saturday, I hosted a garden craft themed craft party, and it was really a lot of fun!  We ended up making mosaic stepping stones, and considering none of us had made stones before, I think we did a pretty good job!  

I started thrifting for items to use for molds and for the mosaics about a month ago.  I also ordered some really pretty scrap glass from Etsy.  Until that morning, when I set all of supplies out together, I didn't realize just how much stuff I'd collected.

While we sat around the table, eating yummy food, there was a lot of discussion about breaking some of the nicer dishes.  All along, I'd thought I'd have a hard time breaking perfectly good dishes, but I was wrong.  It was fun!!

While some of us were doing the fun part, Sarah and Amy graciously prepared the concrete and molds.  I read that it's important to use cooking spray if you're using cake pans as molds.  It's supposed to make it easier to get the stone out of the mold, but I can't verify that yet since ours are still curing.  We have to wait 5 days!  Seriously, that is such a long time to a crafter.  I think most of us are definitely instant gratification type gals so 5 days is like 5 months in craft time.

I was still working away on mine when most everyone left so I never stopped to take photos of their stones, but here's mine.  I used some of the pretty china I'd been collecting.  I figured using it to make something pretty was better than just having it stacked on some shelf, where it isn't being seen.

When I was planning this party, I pinned all kinds of gorgeous mosaic stones, thinking I'd do some crazy elaborate piece.  Well, I found out that it's not that easy.  It took me forever to cut up my pieces.  It's really hard to fussy-cut glass!  In the whole time that everyone else made at least 2 stones, I was still cutting!  I know now that I should have all of my pieces cut out in advance.  By the time I started placing my pieces in the cement, it had already started setting so I wasn't able to push my pieces down as much as I'd have liked.  I'm planning to go back over the piece with grout to help cover up some of the sharp edges. I'm still pleased with how it looks so far though, and I can't wait to make more.

Have any of you ever done mosaics?  Do you have any tips to share?  I'd love to know some better ways for cutting china.  


Until next time...