The Saga of the Sea Glass Mosaic

Recently we had some repairs on our front porch, trim, and stairs.  With all of that fine work done and fresh new paint...we simply MUST have new house numbers!  That led to a manic Pinterest episode.  Going in, I knew that I wanted something fun, special, and possibly something that I could make.  The more that I looked around on Pinterest and on my daily drives, I decided that I wanted to do a mosaic made from my sea glass.  I found an online tutorial and pretty much used that as my basic guide.  (For the link, see the end of this blog.)

 

Off to Home Depot...

As I walked down the wood aisle, I was greeted by a man who was able to guide me to the type and thickness of plywood that would work best for my project.  Because I didn't measure the possible location(s) for my house numbers, I just guessed and had the man cut the sheet into thirds.  That seemed about right.  So...Wood?  Check!

 

From there I went to the glue section, which in Home Depot is also the paint section, to find "Wood Glue" and a mysterious substance called P.V.A. glue.  The article that I was using as my guide said that I needed P.V.A. glue, but despite three Home Depot employees and me Googling on my phone...we still couldn't find it.  So, I settled for Elmer's Wood Glue Max.  What could be better than that?! Elmer's is a known entity and "Max" HAS to be good! 

 

 

 

The next stop was to the grout department.  I found a super helpful man who sold me this giant tub of "Fusion Pro". 

According to the salesman: 

1.  No mixing

2.  No matching color from one batch to the next

3.  Waterproof

4.  No sealer necessary

Grout:  Done!

 

After much more Googling, P.V.A. glue is essentially Elmer's.  Back to the glue section for some other super mega wood glue:  "Titebond III  ULTIMATE"!  And that's my final answer.  I decided to use the Elmer's as my P.V.A. and the Titebond as my final wood glue.

 

 

At this point, I spent about $50.00 on wood, two different wood glues, and a lifetime supply of grout.  Satisfied with my purchases, it was time to go home to set up the potential mosaic design.  I chose the green sea glass for the numbers because I thought that would stand out easily from the street plus I had much more green than brown.  (I tend to gravitate to the greens and whites when I'm sea glass hunting.)

 

I laid out the 2, then measured it to see if it would fit with all four digits.  Nope.  I wiped it off and tried again.  Nope again.  Finally the light bulb in my brain lit up.  (Being a school teacher in the summer means my brain shuts down.)  Measure the board, subtract five, and divide by four.  (I chose to make an inch space at the top, bottom, and between each number which is why I subtracted five.)  Then, I sketched the numbers.  Now, it was MUCH easier to line the sea glass on top of the pencil lines.  The picture below is the final lay out, followed by some close up shots of the numbers.

 

The large black dot under the arch of the 2 is where I had penciled in a hole that I was going to drill to hang the mosaic to the post on our front porch.  It was to be pre-drilled, and then hung up with a patch of glass once it was all complete.  However, I later learned about using a French cleat and thought that would work better.

I LOVE the shape of this 8...and I'm proud to say I freehanded it!

Another freehanded number that I'm proud of!

And this handsome 3 was also freehanded.  They ALL were!  Here you can also see the black dot that remained from my initial notion of how to hang the mosaic.

At this point, I was feeling mighty puffed up and proud of myself!  I bought the supplies, made measurements, laid out the green sea glass.  TA DA!  But, now I needed to seal the wood.  That meant that I had to REMOVE the numbers!  Think....think...think...Google...think...  I happened to have some left over Contact Paper that I cut into smallish squares, placed on top of the glass, and carefully removed each number.  Damn!  I'm good!

 

The 2 after it had been transferred to the contact paper.  Easy.

I think that using the Contact Paper in small squares and really pressing each shard to guarantee a smooth lift was a key element in the success.

Now, to seal the wood.  The article that I was using as a guide said to mix the P.V.A. with three parts water.  Not being one to be overly full of foresight, I used a plastic container (with a lid for later storage <---Required some advanced thinking!), and dumped the entire bottle into it, followed by three bottles full of water.  3:1 Done!

I happened to have a sponge brush and that actually worked really well to stir the concoction and to apply the sealer to the wood.

I just painted all sides of the board with the watered down glue.  Knowing that this mosaic was going to hang outside on a post (not under an awning or any type of protection), I figured more glue mixture was better than less.  The board drank it up and I just kept on putting down more.  Ultimately, I used about half of the total liquid I had, sealing all sides and edges.  Then, I left it to dry overnight.

The plywood edges were thirsty!

The next step was to use the Titebond wood glue to set the glass pieces onto the wood.  I used an old quarter inch flat paint brush and a plastic shot glass.  (This step took several days and I needed something that could be (A) easily cleaned or (B) thrown away without feeling guilty.)

After the numbers were all glued in place, came the time to fill in the background with white/clear sea glass.  That was very tedious!  I had to find a flat piece of glass (MOST sea glass comes from bottles/glasses and are slightly curved!), match up the shape against the edge of the board or existing glass, paint a little glue onto the wood, paint more glue onto the glass (and my finger tips), and try to set it down in just the right place, leaving a wee bit of space between each piece for the grout.

 

Just doing this one number took an entire evening! 

When I woke up the next day to check my work, I was hugely disappointed that so much of the wood was able to be seen through the glass.  I should have painted the board white!  Grrr!  After several days of moping around and hemming and hawing, deciding if I should pick off all of the white glass which would probably break and then be unusable...I chose to continue with what I had.  A million hours went in to collecting that sea glass and I just couldn't allow it to be sacrificed.  I now know that if I ever do something like this again, I would paint the wood first.

A close up of the intricate matching of size and shape.

It took several days to complete all of the white and then one more day to do the edges.  I chose to alternate brown and green as a border because between the two colors it would be easier to find enough 1/2 inch size and flat pieces.  This was a good way to use up some of the not jewelry quality sea glass with edges that are not fully frosted.

I let that all dry over night and readied myself for grouting the next day.  Since I didn't want to use the whole car washing sponge, I cut off only a section.  I'm glad that I did that because once I was using the sponge to clean off the excess grout, having a full sized piece would have been too big for the work that I was doing.
 

I chose a bright white grout to blend in with the white sea glass, not anticipating that the glued pieces would allow so much of the wood to show through.  It took me a little courage but I eventually stuck my hand into the cold goo and plopped in down on the glass.
 

I don't know what I was thinking about buying all of this grout!?

Putting the grout on was kind of like frosting a cake by hand.  I was really feeling grateful that sea glass has smoothed edges and I didn't have to worry about shredding my finger tips!  But, since some of the glass was very thick and others were thinner, there was no way I could use a trowel to apply the grout.

Smartly, I only used one hand!  My left hand was free to take pictures.

All done!  Another smart thing that I did was to use paper towels under the board to catch any grout crumbs.  No muss, no fuss!  I just tossed it in the trash and disappeared all of the mess.

The whole board and sides are done!

Close up of the corner.  I just smeared the grout onto the paper towel to be certain that I had really covered all of the surface.

Then, I decided that it would be best to elevate the board off of the paper towel to more easily be able to properly finish the edges.

I used a plastic shoe box to elevate the board.

The rinsing step was much harder than I thought it was going to be.  The stuff just doesn't want to come off of the glass.  Too much water made the grout just mushy and spread more onto the glass.  Too little water meant that I just dragged the sponge through the grout and messed up the glass again.  Both a damp paper towel and a dry paper towel gave me the same results as the sponge.  The grout was drying and leaving a haze! 

Note the jewelry in the top right corner.  Take off your jewelry when working with grout!

I hardly even made a dent in my bucket of grout!

The finished product!

Grout sticks to fingernail polish.

Luckily I keep a gallon of Boraxo next to my stationary tub in the garage!

At this point, I haven't fully finished the mosaic.  I'm not happy with the way the grout haze settled into every teeny tiny etched patina of the sea glass.  I've been reading about scary chemicals to remove grout haze but I think I'll try vinegar and elbow grease first.

Then, I had to hang the darn thing!

Mosaic instructions:
Based on this webpage from Woman's Day magazine.

For more examples of my sea glass, click on the following links:
Garage Jewelry Girl on Facebook
Garage Jewelry on Pinterest