In the last blog I did on table mosaics, I mentioned that my house was on the market. After 15 days of activity, averaging 2 showings a day, I received 5 strong offers! The one offer that I accepted ended up being more than my asking price, so I am definitely pleased. I would like to take a moment to thank my real estate agent as well as Erickson Realty and Moving Services (ERMS) columns that I took advice from in the Erickson Tribune. I am now going through the process of preparing the house for the buyer. The inspection is done, my fix-it list is getting shorter with each passing day, and I have narrowed down my search of potential places to live. Yesterday was my one month mark. Yes, I have to be out in ONE MONTH! Sometimes I step back from all the chaos and ask myself “Oh my goodness, what have I done!” (that was a little censored)! Throughout this process I have had to rely on others to get things done. And for me, that is not an easy task. So another day, another table, another 3 dozen tiles of tumbled marble to go to town on and SMASH TO PIECES!! Thank you to everyone for their feedback and positive thoughts with the last mosaic table blog that I posted! I hope that you will share your tile smashing adventures with me! Take pictures of what you have been working on and email them to me at sara.walters@erickson.com. I would love to post your work on my blog!
I promised another technique, so here we are! This time it’s no holds barred. I didn’t worry about piecing the tiles back together this time. With this table, I scattered all the broken pieces and fit them together like a puzzle. This technique was more of a full week project, rather than just a weekend project. Going into it, I knew that I wanted to take my time and do things a little differently.
Again, I used tumbled marble, but this time I used a different color. I used the same adhesive that I found at Michaels or Joann craft stores. I covered the pores of the tiles with blue painters tape. And I went through 4 bags Simply Mosaics ivory colored tile grout. I applied more this time because I learned that if I spread it around too thin, it sank into the creases as it dried, leaving deep indents. To avoid this, I allowed the grout to dry before attempting to wipe it off.
The next day I bought a sander attachment for my drill, which only cost me $7 at Home Depot. It came with 6 round adhesive pieces of sandpaper ranging from course to fine. I used the coarse sandpaper to expose the blue tape.
I learned a short cut to removing the blue tape. Before destroying all of my fingernails, I resorted to a razor blade, and it worked wonders! After removing all of the tape, I went in between the tiles with sandpaper. By hand, I smoothed out the surface of the grout with fine sandpaper. Then I used a vacuum cleaner to suck out all of the grout dust from the pores of the tumbled marble tiles. As my final step, I took a wet sponge and wiped the surface clean from dust.
This table definitely took me a lot more time, but the outcome is well worth it. If you haven’t seen the square table I did, click on this link. Happy crafting!! And don’t forget to send me your pictures!














