Remember this?

Yes, it’s the famous toilet from “The Art of Being Big Girl Continued”! If you remember, it took me about three days to change out the toilet in the guest bathroom. My first thought was to put the old one out on the curb for the yearly neighborhood trash pick up. But we all knew that wasn’t going to happen. I started thinking, this thing is a trophy! I worked hard on that project. If it’s going to go into a land fill, it might as well go into it decorated and whimsical. So I moved it to an area in the back yard where I couldn’t see it from the patio (because to be really honest, I have never been a fan of toilet art in backyards). I put a few glass gems on it, just thinking of doing  a random design. Unbeknownst to me, it was going to rain!

Just a little FYI: Liquid Nails does not stick on toilets after a big rainstorm.So, after a month or so of deciding what to do with it, I moved my “trophy” and decided to make it into a “hummingbird” birdbath / fountain. It’s still a “work in progress”,  but now it’s close enough to being finished to share with you.

Since it was going to be for hummingbirds, I decided there should be a hummingbird on it. I also decided to use broken plates instead of small glass tiles because if it’s going to be on a toilet outside, I wasn’t going to do something that would take hours and hours not to mention a lot of expensive tiles! With the larger pieces the pattern came together much more quickly.I had gotten some really big glass gems awhile back and was happy to find out they were not that hard to cut into pieces, so that’s what I used for the main flower.I had measured the different spaces I would need for my designs, so they would fit when it was time to “thinset” them to the surfaces.Another helpful DIY tip: If you get really good with plastic spoons you may be able to get away with not putting on gloves for this process. (The operative word is “may”!)

I cut my strips of card stock, clear tape, and mesh tape to the correct sizes and started with different designs.Can you see the crack in the bottom right corner? That happened when I moved it from the other side of the yard. I guess those little “roll-y carts” teachers use to drag their stuff around are not really made for transporting toilets across the yard. Who knew?I got these tiles at a discount from the “reject pile” at a tile warehouse here in town, quite a few months ago. Suddenly I remembered I had them and thought the “talavera” blue color would be just what I needed!

The tea pot was from Goodwill for $1.99. Not sure how I will utilize it yet, but I think it has to be there!

Here are some random shots of the different designs. I did decide to use some of my glass from Hobby Lobby for leaves. You’ll notice the sky around the hummingbird is also from a sheet of Hobby Lobby glass.

Attempted Jacobean flowers…Notice the drawings under the mesh are only for reference. With broken pottery you aren’t going to be able to do the same thing you could do with tiny cut glass pieces.

Since I believe in the “grout as you go” method, here are some shots of the grout-in-progress.

Marbles and large glass gems! Such fun!

I did use small mosaic tiles for a couple of strips on the side. It worked, but there’s no way I would try to cover an entire toilet like this…Oh did I mention this was going to be a birdbath? Well…a major concept of my kind of art is that you can always change your mind mid-project. So for now maybe the bright colors will attract hummingbirds…that and the fact that it’s directly below one of the hummingbird feeders. The real fountain / birdbath is now what used to be the Amazing Chocolate Mosaic Vase!

But that’s another post altogether…