You can only let a table sit there for so long without a mosaic, right?

You may know by now that a flat, empty space anywhere is just a project waiting to happen at my house.

This is not to say that much contemplation hasn’t gone into (most of) my projects.

But finally the idea begins to take shape. What if I were to…(fill in the blank).

It’s not like I don’t have plenty of supplies and tesserae (Don’t you just love that ever-so-artistic vocabulary word?)

There are very few boring tables that a tube of Liquid Nails and some broken pottery can’t fix.

Now, before anyone gets too concerned, yes, I do know that wood is not the correct substrate for an outdoor mosaic. I found this out the hard way. If you missed it, you can go back and read “It Was a Good Idea”…

But I can explain. First, this table is under the patio, so it shouldn’t be getting wet or exposed to too much inclement weather. Second, this is just a random project to use up some of the broken plates that have been sitting out there unnoticed since I started making indoor stained-glass mosaics. Might as well use them up.

I also know that due to the nature of broken pottery mosaic, the table is not going to be a smooth surface anymore, so I probably won’t be able to use it to work on other stuff like I have in the past.

But, as usual, the thrill of creating something new and pretty proved irresistible. I’ll worry about the uneven surface later.

As an FYI, you can mess up your tile cutter if you use it on pieces that already have glue on them. But sometimes you have to, because you might not like the way a piece looks after you’ve glued it in place. If you act quickly, you can take it off and cut it some more. I use a tiny screwdriver to clean out excess glue from between the pieces.

I guess I’d been saving the center of this little plate for such a time as this. Daddy would be proud. Hearing him say, “Don’t throw that away, it might come in handy” is one of my unforgettable childhood memories.

As usual, I can rarely wait until a project is finished before I post about it. This is how it looks right now from the back living room window. And in case you wonder why there is a string of lights out there…

It’s because I liked the solar Christmas lights that I’d put on the front window so much that after Christmas I didn’t want to take them down. But as a favor to my neighborhood, I did, and put them up on the patio instead. Because Christmas lights are whimsical, and whimsical always makes you feel better!

And so do cats, just saying.