The Sea Animals are finished!

Hi everyone, this is Foster and I’m here to show you our finished sea animals mosaic. Oh, the title? Well that’s what happens when your mom used to teach beginning English learners. She got thinking, that there were a number of ways to say “sea animals”, all with different meanings. There’s “See? Animals!”, then there is “See animals?” or, if you’re talking directly to the animals it might be, “See, animals?” And then you have “Sea animals.”  Or, “See the sea animals?”  Then there’s always “Fish in water”, but that’s another story. Just don’t ask her a language related question or we’ll be here all day. Trust me on this.

So let’s start with the fish. These are close ups of the fish in varying stages of completion. Mom really likes the one at the bottom left, but one of the things she learned from it was that if you are doing your mosaic on mesh you shouldn’t use clear glass gems. You’ll remember I told you about that in “Sea Animals Part 3.” “See” what I mean?So here is the completed project, but it’s hard to get the whole thing in one photo.This shows the bottom part. And now for a few more “takeaways” Mom got from this project.First off, “don’t laugh” at her octopus! We know he looks kind of funny, and his other two legs are behind him where you can’t see them. In case you counted.If you’re not careful, you might miss a little spot with the grout. Don’t forget to go back and fill it in later.You will notice that these glass gems aren’t exactly even. But then you have to remember, the bottom of the see is probably not exactly even, either. It’s kind of a pain to put down a drop cloth every time you want to work with Thinset or grout, so a towel will work just as well. You are still going to have to sweep the dry bits of mortar out of the tub though. Don’t let any of it go down the drain, unless you want to do another big project that you probably shouldn’t try at home! (Click the link for details…)

If you are going to give your snails faces, pay attention to what you’re doing. You’re not going to be able to change them once the grout is done!When you are cleaning the Thinset from between the tiles, some of the really small ones can fall off. Don’t forget to replace them before you grout, or you might end up with a permanently one-eyed crab.And speaking of Thinset, if you let it dry for too long before cleaning it off your tiles, it is going to be really hard to get off. It can be done, but your hand will get really sore from gripping your little tiny screwdriver or whatever you use to do it.The same thing goes for grout. The longer you leave it on the harder it will be to get off.Here you can see the same spiral pretty well cleaned up, but still not perfect.This clam was too close to the top of the mesh, so there was no room to finish out the upside down triangles along the border. Pieces that small would be pretty hard to add in with Thinset after it was on the wall, and Mom isn’t that much of a perfectionist!Mom says she probably wouldn’t have used those long skinny glass gems if she’d known they were going to remind her of worms or slugs. As a cat, I personally think worms and slugs would be pretty cool to play with, but she says no.So there you have it! It took about three months but the sea animals are done! Now the next thing she’s working on is outside, so I can only see it from the window. Mom says it’s going to be a hummingbird fountain/birdbath. She said I could include this photo as a sneak preview.If you’re not sure how this got into our back yard in the first place, you can go back and read “The Art of Being Big Girl, Continued”.  (Just saying.)