The table that started it all…

My first mosaic was a rather big project for a beginner: an Ikea coffee table that I wanted to jazz up. But before I could even begin, I hit a snag: the table resided with my partner, in Toronto, but I was an hour away in Kitchener. How to get the table without her noticing? (This was for a gift, after all, so it needed to be a surprise.) Kidnapping the table, even if accompanied by all-black attire, stealth moves, and the Mission Impossible theme, was out of the question. Since I couldn’t bring the table to the mosaic, I had to find a way to bring the mosaic to the table. The solution: daddy. My dad’s quite the genius when it comes to being handy, so I got him to make this nifty little wooden box-like cover that slid perfectly over the tabletop. Problem solved! I could work on the mosaic in Kitchener, and then transport it to Toronto once it was finished.

After finding a suitable design courtesy of the Internet (a Mayan-looking quetzal, the national bird of Guatemala), I got started. Being deathly afraid of my mom’s glass cutter, I played with her scraps as if they were a jigsaw puzzle and fit them into the design I had laid out. Mom was nice enough to cut the border for me, as well as 3 or 4 pieces that were cut to fit when I had really backed myself into a corner. Due to my inexperience, the mosaic progressed slowly. Thank goodness for good music and trashy TV! After finally glueing down the last piece, I thought I was in the clear. But alas, grouting proved to more of a pain in the ass than I had anticipated. Smushing the goop into the grooves, wiping the tiles, misting the whole thing, water-proofing it, and then finally polishing it…man, did I ever hate grouting. Still do, actually. But my patience paid off and the finished product ended up being pretty nice. Ever since then, despite the hours and hours and hours spent painstakingly putting the design together and then cleaning it all up, I’ve been hooked on mosaics.