Mosaic Mom

The gallery called this morning to check the price on “Tea Pot Pot”. This tea pot was one of my first attempts to cut ceramic ware. I cut it with a hacksaw. That took forever and I was darned lucky I got an even split. But I did and it’s a cute piece.

Despite a very reasonable price, Tea Pot Pot didn’t sell this morning. Realizing that my price tags needed a redo however, I drove over to the gallery and re-tagged everything. Jake had made me some business cards and now everything is priced on a card with a ribbon. This is a bit better than just a sticky label.

The gallery also features a local painter/woodworker. He happened to be there this morning. He has a teapot that has no lid and might have me make it into a birdhouse for him. That would be fun.

Sharon told me Tall Butterscotch piece hadn’t worked for the customer, so I brought him (personification not grammatical juxtaposition) home. I have always loved that piece and am happy to have it back.

This afternoon Jake and I went over to Deb’s 50th birthday party. Jake got pressed into service grilling hamburgers. He’s very good at it, thanks to all those Z Club picnics. Lots of people were there and he cooked a heap o’beef.

We are now quietly enjoying New Year’s Eve. Jake is in the Z shop. I will be at the mosaic table shortly. Helen is out partying with Casey and Ian. Happy New Year’s to All.

Strolling through Lowe’s Garden Center is such a pleasure. It’s like a big park…only you don’t have to pay admission. You visit and someone else stays to do the watering.

Jake and I picked out flowers for Suzy’s daughter’s wedding reception. Bedding plants and foliage plants will construct a botanical theme. I will try to remember to get a photo to post later in the week.

The main food table centerpiece is to be built around a candelabrum. Some fresh violas were in stock and are similar in color to the blue candles she wants. The candles are plumbago, but plumbago isn’t in bloom this time of year. The lavender violas are fairly close. White violas are going to be very useful as well as white alyssum. Dusty Miller will get chopped up for foliage and so will the asparagus fern. The Adiantum fern will get divided and implanted and we got 2 small dizygothecas. Jake will buy white roses and some gypsophylla from Publix on Friday. Add that to fern and ivy cut from the yard and we’ll be good to go.

I have to make 7 guest table centerpieces, a main food table centerpiece, the sideboard groom’s cake table centerpiece, and the live arrangement for the guest bathroom pissoire. That’s 10 flower arrangements on Friday.

All the silk arrangements are finished and delivered. (That was 2 bathroom arrangements, the guest book table and two 8 ft floral garlands for the entry trellis.)

All the oasis is cut and is soaking tonight. All the vases are washed, sticky tags removed and ready to go. Ribbon picks are assembled.

While at Lowe’s I also bought an orchid. Tomorrow is a surprise birthday party for Deb. She will enjoy getting an orchid in a mosaic pot.

So, chores under control.…I had time to mosaic this afternoon. I got the cheekbone and eyebrow area of Claymoon started. I began to think about how to make cuts in the dishware Helen gave me for Christmas. There’s got to be an easy method to section a plate rim into regular trapezoids. Any hints?

I am looking forward to the Bluemner show and the Chiluly show in January and then the Mt Dora show. Yikes, time flies!

Helen and I cleared off the mosaics table this afternoon and turned it into a florist shop.
Time to do the flowers for Suzy's daughter's reception.

Helen and I had a great time as I taught her to wire bowers and tape stems. She makes great bows...better than mine. I've always been poor at bows. So thanks to her help we got two 4 foot garlands made for the trellises.

After Helen left, I made the arrangement for the sign in table and the bud vase for the pissoire near the garage. Late in the afternoon, I delivered it, so someone else can climb the ladder and hang the pieces.

All the silk work got done today.Tomorrow Jake and I will hit the trail to find the fresh flowers we need.

Helen and Jake are great! They are tremendously supportive of my mosaics work. The Christmas presents they gave me reflect heartfuls of love.

Helen went to a thrift store and bought a mountain of dishes, mugs and figurines to be broken and morphed into mosaic tesserae. That is exactly the kind of gift I love to have.

She also got a large clay pot from her friend in art school. The pot had exploded on one side, but I can patch it up with a little mortar and mosaic right over the hole. This is a really exciting piece to plan as it has an excellent shape…once patched.

Jake’s gift was awesome. He used power point to create a poster of all my mosaic pieces.
It is spectacular and I can’t wait to put it in my office.

He also got me Jean Nate perfume. He doesn’t like the smell of tile dust.This will be a fine late afternoon refresher.

The best thing about Christmas was having a family that loves me. Thank you, guys.
That love is the best mosaic of all.

Love really is like a mosaic. You add little pieces every day and one day you have a beautiful masterpiece constructed.

Merry Christmas to All...

And what would Mosaic Mom use to clean house?

A mosaic vacuum cleaner of course!

It was so nice today to get back in the studio. Crowded malls, too long lines at the Post office, and jockying for a checkout lane at Target are behind me. Ahead is panic shopping at the grocery store tomorrow.

But today was a good day to work at mosaics. I cleaned up benches, added details to a tissue box cover, measured and cut tesserae for the large pot with the afghan pattern, and even worked on the garage wall.

Zeus gave me the best Christmas present ever...he caught a squirrel! ood Cat!

Jake was fishing and caught whitting and pompano..so we have supper for tomorrow...oh yeah, I won't have to fight the crowd at Publix. Double Yay!

It wasn't crowded at the YMCA today. I have actually lost 3 lbs this holiday season by avoiding the evil fruitcake.

Mosaicmom should have a car like this! However, the guy said it took 6 months and 600 Lbs of tile and silicone! Visit www.artcars.com for more...

Suzy and I had shopped Old Time Pottery back in October to pick out ribbon and candles for the flower arrangements for Shelley's reception. The theme is a pale blue and silver. A very delicate look and it avoids holiday theming.

Next week I will make a trip up to Lowe's and hope they have violas there to make the arrangements with. I will need at least 20 to 30 open flowers for the table arrangements alone and probably another 12 or more for the centerpiece.

Saturday night as Jake and I watched TV, I made the ribbon picks for the table arrangements. They turned out great, like silver rose buds. So far so good.

Helen's friend Cliff dropped over for a visit. He is at Ft Hood and may go to Iraq this spring. He had a good laugh at my mosaic vacuum cleaner. I think he will never take up mosaics as a hobby.

Mel and Scott came over to help Jake on the carburator this afternoon. I wonder if they'll ever give me a car to mosaic?

This was a fun project I did last spring. A lady came in the studio, saw Bee Seated and placed an order for 2 Sunflower seats. It was a really fun summer project. I am thinking of hot days because it is very cold today. It will probably freeze tonight.






I traveled over to Intercoastal Tile to pick up the sample for David's bathroom. Here's a Get Well Soon to Mike!!!

There are 2 people in my circle who don’t like mosaics. They really don’t like the art.

They are both in their early 70’s. One is 73 and one is 75. I wonder if something historic affected them to dislike mosaics? They would have been styling and decorating their first homes in the late 1940’s/early 50’s. What was going on in the world of tile that so turned them off?

One of these people is my own mother! She grew up with a tiled bathroom, at least at the Rittenhouse address. (I bet they didn’t have a tiled bathroom in Scranton. Hope my aunt chimes in with information on this.)
That bathroom had white hex tile on the floor, a pedestal sink, footed tub and a separate shower. My grandfather always plastered his soapy wash cloth to the shower stall wall and let it dry that way. This was a habit my grandmother hated.
The house my parents bought on Ridgecrest had an avocado tile bathroom downstairs and a pink tile bath upstairs. But when Mom and Dad added on to the house, the new bath had no tile. It was a painted room with a linoleum floor.
My mom’s house today has no tile. It’s a fiberglass backsplash and a wooden floor.

Were they influenced by Gaudi? My Mother always called “tacky” things “gaudy”.

The other person, Rick, grew up in rural W.Va. No doubt he had a wooden bathroom, with lino floors. So maybe his dislike of tile came in the military?

My house (built in 1972) had an avocado bathroom until the room had to be gutted and rebuilt due to water damage. Now the tub/shower area is tiled (beige) to the ceiling but the rest of the room is wallboard/wallpaper and a vinyl floor.
The second bathroom is yellow tile with brown flecks. When it needed a redo, I made the tile man match the tile. It took a while to find the source. There was no Infotile then.

“Clay Moon” is going to be a fun project, but the tesserae are going to be really, really small. I did some preliminary lining out on the piece yesterday and decided on the color palate.

The piece of jewelry I want to use on the cheek is cheap gold plate and may scratch when grouted. I popped the gold center out of that piece and glued a blue glass bead in to go along with the blue glass I will be using.

Temperatures are dropping as a weather front howls through today. My job this afternoon is to find the space heater for the studio and see if it is operational.

Running the wet saw is fun in the summer when I don’t mind getting wet. But my fingers get too cold in the winter. Hey,…I could invent a wet saw water heater! There’s the ticket!
I need to cut pieces for a large flower pot I started. But I’m not in the mood to slosh around today.

Soon I have to clear off the work table and start on the flower arrangements for Suzy’s reception. Switch from mosaic art to floral art.

Mosaics even on a day without mosaics

Today is the 15th and tax deposits were due at the bank. Helen went with me on the bank and post office run then we headed to the local mall to get her a new pair of boots.

At Belks, a display worker was setting up a vignette in the bath and linens area with mosaic topped tables.

At Penney’s shoe department, an end cap advertisement poster showed spring sandals set against a background of Roman styled mosaics.

At Goodwill, I spotted a ceramic vase that would have made a great shaped foundation for mosaic application , but I wasn’t going to shell out $12.00 for it!

At Target, I bought a clayware moon. “Blue Moon” was a beautiful project, but his base was paper mache. He became a strictly indoor piece. Jake still wants a “moon” to put on the door of our outhouse. Yes, we have an outhouse. This clay base will work nicely.

Jake made me business cards yesterday. They are awesome…with pictures of my work on the cards. I need to go to the gallery and put them with all the pieces. Maybe after Christmas.

Hormone fluxes are powerful mojo. And I had a big dose yesterday.

A craving for Christmas shopping hit me, even though I had already provided for every one on my list. Internet shopping, point, click and send. It hadn’t satisfied.

My first hormone driven stop took me to the Post Office to send a last minute doo-dad for my sister.

I stood in line for ½ hour. Loved it! Mostly it was a line of geezers, but there was a Harley Man right behind me. Very exciting… Tatoos, bearded, chain driven…but not interested in talking to me.

Next stop, the Mall. I wandered from Penney’s to Sears to Books A Million through Belks. I picked up a tablecloth at Target, but I was still driven like a wildebeest migration swimming the Congo River.

Then I spied my salvation…or rather The Salvation Army Angel Tree. What a great answer for me.

I picked the tag for a 3 year old girl and proceeded back to Target to drown myself in Pink.
I got her a pink jogging suit with a pink shirt that said “Happiness” Yes, I’m feeling better now. I go on to select a pair of shoes in matching pink.

She wants a doll baby bed and a kitchen set. I move into the toy section in Target and here I start to get really grateful. There are screaming, whining tots and shrieking parents…I remember why I am so happy that my kid is in college! There is pushing and cart bumping and sheer desperation in this department.

I pick out a Little Tykes Kitchen Set and I am ecstatic that the million small bits of plastic food in this box aren’t headed for my living room floor. A Barbie bed pink and canopied suits the bill for baby bed. I couldn’t find one for a larger doll and my hormones were running out of steam. I didn’t think I could make the jog to the real toy store at the other end of the mall. Barbie with pink canopy and sheets would have to do.

Target’s selection of girls dresses disappointed…not pink and cute enough. So I meandered over to Belks. I found an adorable green velvet dress with a big white lace collar and little pink rosebuds…cute. I got white tights and a pair of patent leather shoes to make the outfit. But in a last surge, my hormones spied a fuzzy pink sweater girls size 4 and into the cart it flew. And I was spent…hormonally and financially…and it felt good.
When my daughter came home from college last night, she wanted to go shopping for a new pair of boots. We will go tomorrow. I am so happy and maybe I can sell her on a pink fuzzy sweater???

David and I hit the trifecta of tile today.

He wants to install a new floor in his guest bathroom 6x10ft.
After Thanksgiving dinner, he had taken home some samples I had of red Bisazza glass tiles, green Venetian glass tiles and copper 4x4 polymer tiles.

He liked the Bissaza so we started our search at Intercoastal. We drooled over the new pool tile from Master Tile. The new Bissaza is gorgeous. And there was a piece of faux marble that was very nice but might have been too greyed in color. We ordered a sample from the Master tile line to take on approval next week.

Then we went on to Atlantic to see the Azuvi selection. David picked a nice product, but when we checked the price it was $33.00 per square foot…like way out of the budget.

So we went on up to Lowe’s to check some biscuit hex that David had previously scouted. What we liked instead was a 2x3” rectangular mosaic sheet at $8.00 per square much more reasonable. So we bought a sheet for sample purposes. Once we got it here to the studio, it looked greyed, but the true test will be at his location. We may pair it with inserts of Ceramic Prints Glass Concepts.

It was fun hitting 3 tile stores in one day.

I have too many projects waiting for attention to fall in love with new things right now.

The High School Art Club Christmas party was held this afternoon.

I took over Little Debbies, Pepsi and since it was Christmas, I bought some napkins and cups with a holly motif.

The kids were folding their origami ornaments when I arrived. We spent a happy hour or two making paper swans, cranes, boats, leaves hearts, snowflakes and frogs.

I folded a paper cup but the boys discovered it didn’t hold Pepsi. This of course was uproariously funny to them on their Little Debbie sugar highs.

We have a great core group of art kids again and should enjoy a few years of fun club activities.

I took home 3 mosaic board projects that students hadn’t wanted. I will add finishing touches and place them in my garden. They are nice bright botanical patterns.

Jake and I headed out the door this evening for the Z Club Christmas party. We took some plants for the door prizes. We enjoyed a nice salmon dinner at Hops restaurant and Jake won a plaque for his restoration work. Yay Man!

It was a nice day.

Tomorrow, David is coming over after lunch to go tile shopping.

When I answer the phone I say,”This is Barbara.” Not “Hello” or the name of the business. Just, “This is Barbara.”

Not everyone knows we have a business and there’s no explanation necessary for social callers.

During high school years, this salutation prevented Helen’s friends from confusing our voices and telling me something I didn’t want to hear.

We are one digit different from a law office and we often get their wrong number calls. They don’t pay me to tell their phone number but at least this greeting is a little bit professional before I ditch their clients.

And finally, the caller might be looking for our business. I have answered the phone to find the Japanese calling about their breeders rights.

The phone rang this afternoon and I gave the greeting,”This is Barbara.”

“This is Max your Sprint account representative. May I speak to the person who handles your account?”

I told Max I could take the call. He then told me that Sprint was offering free listing in their web yellow pages directory and this was the place to get listed to have my business noticed. This listing would be free and all I had to do was buy the web design services.

AHA, now I have spotted the solicitation. He is not a Sprint account representative, he is a salesman. I give my customary response, “We’re not a potential customer. Thank you for checking. Good day.” Click, I hang up.

Phone rings right back.
“This is Barbara.”
Max says,” What part of free don’t you understand? Do you want to be a crappy little business forever?”

I hang up on Max again.

Then I got mad. I think he must be a Sprint contractor, like where Cat works, and he has no right to call me a “crappy little business”. I call Sprint to report him.

The real Sprint customer service rep is disappointed that I didn’t get Max’s number so they can trace him. But I end up getting free line blocker so no 3rd party like Max or Phoenix University can bill me. I feel safer. I have a phone prophylactic now.

Grrrrr.

No mosaics today. I followed Jake to the car repair shop then shuttled him to work. My sister called with a family situation. Helen called for a weather update. I dicked around for an hour with the Max problem. I went to the YMCA and hurt my knee trying to be a hot shot. Double Grrr.

Tomorrow is Art Club Christmas Party Day. I am not happy that they had 2 kids with guns over at Mt Dora Jr High today. I’ll take extra cookies and soda to make the kids happy.

Wit's End Mosaic is a great company. I've been buying from them for years and they are always accurate and prompt. They sponsor events in SAMA and they're just reliable and positive.

Every month they send an e-mail newsletter. It is the only e mail newsletter I open and read. Today I read about free shipping with a $75 dollar or more order.

Then I spied attachments. I ASSUMED they were pictures of mosaic sale items, but no!!! The one I opened was an advertisement to reduce my mortgage rate! It was a spam disguised in an e-mail.

There were 4 attachments to the email. Did Wits End know? Were they getting paid to tote ads for these others? Is this a virus that is going to infect everybody's e-mails everywhere? Am I infected now?

From now on, I will not open any attachment from anyone, ANYONE, unless the body of the e-mail tells me there is an attachment and tells me how many KBS in it. There might be one legitamate attachment and several riders. Bummer.

David and I are playing date tag to meet and go see tile samples for his bathroom. He prefers an organic look, which I also like, so this will be a fun trip.

I grouted the scrap pot today. Also got the pattern well organized and mortared on a 15gal pot. Working with something so heavy hurt my back.

Our friend Lyndon, the Poinsettia Breeder visited for dinner tonight. Always nice to see him.

Up early and off to the gallery today. I was finally able to get in and take inventory. A blue mosaic orb had sold for $5.00. They paid me then I turned around and traded for an umbrella stand they had. So I’m even on the day.

Tall Butterscotch vase and Little Companion piece were still in the store, so I don’t get paid till they are placed at the client’s home and billed to her.

I had thought about pulling one of my pieces out to send to Aunt Karin for Christmas. But Karin called this morning. She is cleaning out her house in anticipation of travel and RV living for 2004. Mosaic art would have to stay in storage for a while. So I’ll get her something else.

My second stop of the day was Intercoastal Tile. Bridget has been a real supportive person for me this year. So I gave her Mr. Frosty. It turns out, she collects Snowmen, and to have one made out of tile thrilled her. Hurray!

They have really expanded their lines! I will be doing lots of shopping with them next year! The new Bissaza is gorgeous! It looks like they’ve brought in CobsA and a new line of Venetian glass. The Florida tile boards are showing neutrals. I asked Bridget to let me know if I need to stock up on close out 4” glazed.

My throat hurts. I hope I am not getting sick. This afternoon I will grout another scrap pot.

Tall Butterscotch vase and Bird vase are my work. The hibiscus and the 2 UF aligators belong to tilecraft. I am just learning how to upload and download photos. Just practicing. Who would have thought that mosaics would lead me to new computer skills!

This is a picture of Tall Butterscotch vase.

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http://www.tilecraftsite.com/images/artistry/gatorhead.gif

Trying to transport the Gator Head

Jake and I had a long discussion about grout this afternoon. He wants to try to tint or color his own.

Let me digress for a moment and say that this makes me suspicious. What is he doing messing around with grout? His hobby is metal sculpture. Maybe tomorrow I need to poke around in his shop after he leaves for the office. I suspect there is a Christmas present involved!!

Anyway, I've never seen any colorants added to grouts that were either consistent throughout the piece or were permanent. Put them in the garden a few months and they run.

Early on in learning mosaics, I loved colored grouts. But now, I do more color work with the tile and just want the grout to be quiet. I mean, I want the andamento to work, but I don't want it to shout.

I saw a piece the other day where the andamento was done wrong and just ruined the whole work. The gator head andamento just pulls the lines right up from the teeth. Ali the aligator doesn't have that problem. But grout line is part of planning a design.

Colored grouts are becoming as hard to find as colored tiles too. But at least when you buy packaged colored grout mix, the dyes seem to hold longer than the concrete colorants. And you can go back and make a patch later if you have to and get consistent color.

Tomorrow, I'm off to Intercoastal tile to give Bridgette her Christmas present, the Mr Frosty Snowman sculpture!

On Friday night, Suzy had a pajama party.

Pete was out of town and Suzy invited 5 of us...and the theme was we were all over 50.

What a hoot! I hadn't been to a pajama party since the 7th grade. That party (in 1964) was memorable because we laughed so hard that Sarah Merriam wet her pants. And that made us all laugh even harder, which was cruel,but the night was a riot!

We laughed a lot last night too. The favorite topics were menopause, HRT, and the Lake County School Board politics. Then we drank wine and Wild Turkey and played Yatzee till 1AM.

We all dragged out early in the morning and everybody went on their way very happy and nostalgic.

Suzy has done mosaics on the mirrors in both her bathrooms and they are fabulous. I wish I had her color sense.

I will not mosaic until later today. I have to make a Publix run.

Today was Art Club meeting. I bought a bunch of Little Debbie snacks and some Capri Sun drinks and headed over to the high school.

Those high school kids try to look cool...but just put Little Debbies in front of them and they grab like toddlers!

They all got photographed for the yearbook...and the year book photographer grabbed Little Debbies, too.

We tried to plan a club outing to Pearl Supply store, but decided to give that up till the traffic clears after Christmas. Pearl is near a regional mall and an interstate, so that's an exercise in futility this time of year.

Anyway, Club Christmas party is next week. More Little Debbies!!!

George is a treasure.

When I hear his voice, I am both overjoyed and humbled.

We’ve been friends for 45 years this year (1958 to 2003). This is awesome to me.

Scientists say feelings of intense fear cause people to bond. George and I bonded at age 6 when we went walking along Country Club Road in La Grange and encountered a water moccasin. Water moccasins are territorial, aggressive snakes and this one chased us. We ran full speed back to George’s house. Perhaps that’s what bonded us as true friends forever.

There is a senator in Georgia named Arthur Edge. What bulloney…that’s me and George’s neighbor “Skinny Bo”. We used to beat up Skin’s little brother Bubba. SkinnyBo had a bunkhouse in his back yard, but mostly the whole neighborhood played in George’s tree house.
It’s really cool having a friend who knows all this background without having to tell it. A friend who recalls the lady with Siamese cats. Who knew Jimmy Gallent’s pond. Whose mental landscape includes building dams in the creek and Harwell Avenue School and the First Presbyterian Church and the Army Navy store and Charlie Joseph’s.

I am sometimes afraid that if George dies before me, all of LaGrange will be gone…vanish…because no other friend in the world keeps these memories for me except him.

But the really ,really cool thing is that George understands Florida.

George is my only friend who knows that you get a reprieve and a new life when you come to Florida.

There’s this lifestyle of expectations in Georgia, and it was suffocating where George and I came from. It almost cost both of us our lives. It was like having your soul dragged over rocks. But when you cross the border into Florida, you’re free. It’s a get out of jail pass. It’s new life. It’s humidity and tropical turquoise sunsets and Jimmy Buffet. It’s warm and you can scream and nobody pays you any mind. You can grow. George knows this.
I am so glad he made it to Florida…and SOUTH FLORIDA . WOW, He’s mainlining the Florida lifestyle. So cool.

And I really love Barb. She is really the best and most right person in the world for him. In a way they’re almost opposites…a lot like me and Jake…and so I know that’s how they are growing and sanctifying each other. She is profound and deep. And she knows George looks great in those Hibiscus pattern shirts and a panama hat!

Any way, he phoned today and said Merry Christmas and told me all about their trip to Hawaii. And I am so happy for him.

He deals antique guitars on e-bay. I really hope he gets me a guitar to mosaic.

Hooray! All the gifts and cards that have to go are out the door and on their way to make people happy! :-)

I had time this evening to dremel and grout David's pot that he made on Thanksgiving. It looks really cute. He will get it next week after it is dried and sealed.

I dremeled the candleholder , Bissaza glass. And replaced half a dozen pieces that fell off from the dremelling.

Scrap pots are when I'm using up scrap tiles from other projects. I am working on one with a flower pattern. It is driving me crazy because the English tiles are higher so I have to mound the mortar up on the Oleans to get the height even. Tedious. Grrr. But it is giving me time to design 2 more projects in my head. One is going to need a paper pattern. The other should be freestyle.

Had a great workout at the Y today. As a participant in the "Hold It For The Holidays" program, I am supposed to weigh in every Tuesday...I was a day late this week...and am supposed to exercise 3 times a week and hold my weight even until Jan 6th. I lost a pound last week and thought it was a fluke. Well, I lost another pound this week...Go Me!

I will be buffy for toting these heavy flower pots to the craft show in the spring!

It worked. I made a link. Go me! What a script kitty I am becoming!

I found an awesome site today. I have never made a link but I'm going to try. Here it is Infotile

what I was looking for was info on the color ways of Portobello cayman series. What I found was a discussion board about tile and mosaics.

Also today I went to a store called Tuesday Morning to find some objects'd'art to apply mosaics to. But I didn't find anything I liked/affordable/weighed less.

Atlantic tile...Paradise...I picked up my glass order this morning. The turquoise wasn't too blue, more like a spring green, but it will be fine. The deep navy and the azalea lavender are spectacular.

Karen said she had her mosaic work accepted in the Mt Dora Art Show in the spring. Way to go! I can't wait to see her work. She also showed me a lot of their showroom since I am looking for materials for David's guest bathroom. I really, really liked the Azuvi line, especially the blues and greens.

This evening, Jake and I made a run to Lowe's. I picked up 10 Olean Bright Maize tiles. I feel like I need to hoard since glazed tiles are fading from popularity and availability at the moment.

Karen said she expects Florida Tile will change their product line now that they've been bought out. She said glazed 4" are becoming a specialty niche. Mostly all bought by mosaic artists now.

Some of the Azuvi's I looked at were 20"x20". How fast is that going to crack after installation? But it sure saves on labor. Oh well.

I also bought a deck post at Lowe's to make another sculpture. My Aunt says I should try making a lamp. That's a good idea too.