Bad Luck

A couple years ago, we remodeled our master bathroom.  In the course of deconstruction of the old space, we removed a wall full of mirror.  We actually got it out of there in two big pieces, but if I was facing seven years of bad luck, I was going to get my monies worth.

I decided to bust the mirror up completely and mosaic something with the mirror chips.  You're asking me if I had done a lot of mosaic work?  No.  A lot of other glass work?  No.  A single stepping stone at a Home Depot "how to" party?  No.  I just looked at the mirror and said, "I'm going to mosaic something for the garden."

Then I started looking for the perfect something that needed to be covered with mirror shards.  It had to be weatherproof.  It needed to be mostly smooth because I couldn't see sticking mirror over any ornate detail work.  It also needed to be porous, I'm pretty sure you can't bond mastic and grout against an impervious surface like glaze work.

I trolled the garden departments for months, and then I saw them--in the garden center of the Tinker AFB Exchange--birdbaths.  They were smooth, two piece, lovely birdbaths.  Perfect for my vision of mirror mosaic.

At the time, I bought two of them.  Not because I was so sure it would be successful, but because I had that much broken glass.  When you take a big pane of mirror and start nipping it into smaller pieces, you end up with a lot of glass.  In shards.

Thus began the birdbath project.  With two lovely terra cotta, smooth surfaces ready to be mosaiced.  I determined that I would not cover the whole thing, I would cover about three quarters of the pedestal and the inside of the birdbath bowl.  I found some slate tiles leftover from a flooring project to use to line the edge of the bowl.

Without a lesson or any guidance of any type, I went to the hardware store and bought mastic and grout.  I read all the packages and selected the unsanded variety (for working with glass tiles) and made sure it would stick to terra cotta.  Then I came home and set up on the back porch.  It was spring, the weather was fine, and I got to work.

My best friend, Tammy, came to visit one weekend with a pair of glass nippers for me.  She and I broke all the glass together and began the project.  She had to go home before the pedestals were halfway covered, but I think she got the idea what it would look like finished.

Over the course of the next week, I spent my evenings on the back porch, filling in the surface with mirror shards, breaking them to fit the puzzle and make the curves.  Once all the pieces were stuck, I let them set, then brought out the grout.  Grouting is a mindless thing, and very messy.  But the end product looked very good.

Tammy has one birdbath on her deck and I have the other one in my back yard.  When I look at it, it makes me happy.  I didn't just throw away that broken mirror.  I made something lovely out of it.

I still have some broken mirror left.  So I decided on a new project.  I'm going to cover two tall pots to flank my front door.  Wish me luck.

--Sandee Wagner