Mosaic Birdbath

Last week Moanna and I unlocked our creativity to create a mosaic birdbath. The project took several days to complete (two hours hands on), but it’s the most beautiful birdbath I’ve ever seen. To top it off it only cost us about $30.00. That’s quite the bargain for a birdbath.

I found the idea in the May 2011 issue of Family Fun. We don’t take on many crafty projects in our household, but when I came across this, I fell in love with it.

Wednesday, Moanna and I ventured to the craft store to buy our supplies. Many of you who enjoy creating things on a frequent basis, probably own some of this stuff. We owned nothing, not even an old terracotta pot, so we had to start from scratch. I spent about $30.00 on everything we needed to make our mosaic birdbath, not bad considering how unbelievably expensive a birdbath can be.

We decided to use stained glass pieces for our birdbath, but you could use ceramic, pebbles, shells, the possibilities are endless.

We started by playing around with the glass tiles trying to decide on a design.

I wanted to go with something geometric. Moanna had her own visions, and it was clear that my ideas were not going to be entertained.

Once we came to the conclusion that Moanna was the lead designer and I was her intern, we started gluing pieces down using mosaic glue and a piece of cardboard. The glue sets quickly, so we did a little glue and then a few tiles, then a little more glue and so on.

Moanna handed me the peaces and told me where to put them. I obeyed. She does have an eye for what looks good. Maybe a future in fashion or interior design?

About half an hour later and a few editorial squabbles later all of the pieces were in place.

Moanna wanted to add her duck to the picture to eliminate any questions. She wanted it to be clear that this was for the birds. “For the birds” – har har.

As you can see, I got a little carried away with the glue. The container said it would dry clear, but I’m always skeptical when things claim to “dry clear” – ahem deodorant.

Thursday morning we went to the garage to check on our birdbath. The glue had in fact dried clear. Hooray!

Thursday turned into a crazy day, so I ended up grouting the birdbath after putting Moanna to bed that night. Moanna and I had a designer-to-intern talk, and she decided that she could trust me with this task without her supervision.

I mixed up the grout in an old bowl with a plastic spoon (actually it’s a spud spoon) until it resembled cement.

There is probably a much more sophisticated and professional way to grout, but my method went like this. Plop a spoon full of grout on the birdbath, rub it around with a piece of card board, plop on more grout and continue. In the end I used my fingers to get into the nooks that the cardboard wouldn’t reach as well as along the sides. I probably should have taped of the edges or something to get a nice clean line around the top, but that moment of clarity didn’t come to until I had already made a huge mess.

Once I was satisfied with the grout, I certainly didn’t need Moanna to fire me, I allowed it to dry for about half an hour.

After a midnight snack, I returned to the garage to sponge most the grout off of the tiles. The rest would be cleaned off in the morning after the grout had set and hardened all night.

Friday morning, Moanna went to the garage to inspect my work. She was satisfied with our progress, and was ready to move forward. She and I scrubbed and polished the grout off the tiles. I had to put some muscle into a few spots, but it all came off pretty painlessly.

The mosaic sealer gave off some serious fumes, so we opened the garage to get some air circulation and Moanna watched fro ma distance.

The sealer we used was really REALLY thick, so we only put on one coat. Other sealers or projects might require several coats.

The sealer gave the birdbath a nice glossy finish. We allowed the sealer to dry over night.

Saturday morning it was finally time to take our mosaic birdbath outside and fill it with water.

It would be unjust to not explain Moanna’s design; it is quite genius. She came up with this all on her own. The yellow tile on the left side is the sun. The tiles on the left half of the bottom are pink and green because it’s day time. The white tile on the right side (squint – it’s there) is the moon. The tiles on the right half of the bottom are pink and blue because it’s night time. The multicolored tiles down the middle and the circles are “just for decoration.”

Isn’t it the most beautiful mosaic birdbath you’ve ever seen?

Moanna and I are quite proud of our mosaic birdbath, and we are patiently waiting for the birds to come play. This has been one of our favorite projects to work on. It’s a good thing we don’t own our home or I’d be in my kitchen right now attempting to tile the back splash. One day my friend, one day.

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