Elephants Can Remember

On By nanasworldwebIn Mosaics

I’ve always liked elephants.

Foster by pillowWhich is why I decided to decorate the guest room in an elephant motif. For the longest time this tiny room was home to both a queen sized bed and a set of bunk beds, which left about two feet of space for any potential guests to even walk. elephants with puzzleBut now that I’ve taken out the bunk beds (no, I did not do this myself, or you would have seen it on this blog) there is more room to decorate. The panda picture is a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle that I put together and coated with Mod Podge years ago. That’s not going, so I guess what we have here is actually a kind of panda/elephant motif. I know pandas and elephants aren’t usually thought of as going together, but hey, in a whimsical world anything can happen, right?baby elephantI’ve also always liked Agatha Christie, hence the title of this post. Since I own probably way too many Agatha Christie books from Audible, (the ones read by Hugh Frasier are the best), I even listened to “Elephants Can Remember” while working on the project you will see below.beginning elephantAt some point while I was working on the Christmas Tea Tray, I saw a picture of an elephant mosaic on Pinterest and saved it for future reference. I imagined it on a tray in the guest room. Using the picture from online, I drew my own version on a wooden tray from Michael’s Crafts.elephant drawingI noticed the legs on the opposite side of the elephant and part of the underside of it were darker than the rest, which gave it a little more depth, so I marked off the parts that were to be dark. (That’s right, the DK, in this case, does not stand for Debra Kay.)

As usual I was accompanied by my trusty assistant.no groutHere it is without the grout. I knew black grout would probably look good, but I wanted to use the sanded kind, so it was off to Carlos’s store. They didn’t have black but they had “Natural Gray” so that’s what I bought.with groutFor those of you who have been reading for awhile, yes, I know there is an almost full box of non-sanded black grout powder on the back patio, and no, I am not ready to tackle that stuff again! (For those of you who are new, click here if you must know…)grout on edgesAs with the Christmas Tea Tray, I got all kinds of grout on the wood. Mental note: next time use painter’s tape…heart mosaicsI ended up painting the tray black, which I thought looked pretty good. You saw this photo in “Sea Animals Update.”  It had occurred to me that if I put the tray in the guest room as intended, then no one would ever see it except overnight guests, which to be honest, I almost never have. So I left it out on the table where I could see it.

Around this time I came up with another great “hack” for cutting tiles and pieces of glass that are too thin for your tile nippers. (Remember I showed you my first one in “Piece By Piece.”)

You merely go on Amazon and spend $28 for a tile nipper that closes down to 1/8 of an inch! It hadn’t occurred to me that nippers came in different sizes. In reading through different mosaic websites, I discovered this and immediately ordered one. It works like a dream.new glassSo much so that I spent time cutting my glass sheets into tiny squares, triangles, and rectangles and organizing them by color. Much easier than my first method!

In the middle of my “sea animal” project I decided I wanted to make another elephant, this time on sticky mesh. I wanted to use random shapes of green and turquoise glass for this one instead of the little squares I’d used on the first one. Foster supervised patiently, as usual. border ideasI bought another wood tray and glued down the sticky mesh in the center. Then it was time to think about the border.
with tapeThis time I covered the edges of the tray with painter’s tape before starting the grouting process.both elephantsAfter the grout, with the tape still on. Grout always looks darker before it dries, so that’s why it looks different in the pictures below.paint 1Then it was time to remove the tape and paint the tray. finished 2

So there you have it: Another elephant tray…

finished blue

…that may never make it to the guest room!

13 thoughts on “Elephants Can Remember”

  2. Do you know that elephants are a symbol of good luck? Very welcome in the home (I have some too) however you are supposed to always have them facing east. Just one of my (TOO) many old folklore goodies – hee hee. Love your work!

    Reply

    1. I had read something about that but not the facing east part. If I faced the ones on the dresser to the east they would be facing the wall and when you walked in you would be looking right at their bottoms LOL 😂 seriously though I’m glad you like the mosaics! They are super fun to make. 😊

      Reply

  6. Charlee: “We’ve heard that in addition to never forgetting, an elephant is faithful one hundred percent.”
    Chaplin: “Elephants sound like good eggs. No wonder you decided to dedicate a room to one and make such nice artwork!”

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