Did I mention that? Wow! Those safety elves are everywhere. I once got a small grape in my eye when I was pruning an overhead vine; it was in there for 3 weeks. It was the size of a small pea! Those safety Elves may be onto something :) Jen

@@wanderingwallys1602 lol😂

Ashton, Thank you and how kind of you. So sorry to make you wait so long for a reply, I missed the alert letting me know you were waiting! I'm not a great techy! Wally and I have a blog at wandering-wallys.blog where we have some cheerful posts that includes some of our dodgy art. Lovely to hear from you. xx

Thank you KMF.

Your right about it being pleasing Jenny. I've done some work on the fencing too, and it's all looking quite smart out the back. Next project's probably going to be a stained glass mosaic.It'll be in quite a while before I can get going on it as we're trying to upgrade our place, which is taking up a lot of time! Let me know if you decide to have a go at a mosaic, as I'd love to see it. xx

@@wanderingwallys1602 I am working on a front wall that is currently covered with white pebbledash. I am making mandalas out of pebbles. I am making these on fibreglass mesh and I have made two so far. I will position these on the wall and then add new pebble mandalas so that they intertwine (at least, that's my theory). I can post you a pic once it is done because you may fancy doing the same type of thing?

@@JennyPoolton I'd love to see the finished work. It sounds more complex than my fairly adhoc style. Pebbles are such a lovely material to work with. Good luck :). x

Thank you Patrick, you seem sweet too. We almost have a club of mosaic lovers here. Give it a go, it's a messy and gentle 'sport' and can become anything you want it to be. Good luck.

Hello Rupa, You have read the wall perfectly :) We love water and this was my nod to that. We have a blog, wandering-wallys.blog where we write about any old thing that catches our magpie eye and we include some of our dodgy art; how nice it would be if we were experts! Thank you for your kind comment and your astute observation, a woman after my own heart. xx

Hi Judy, Have only just found your comment, so I'm very sorry for the late reply. I'm chuffed that you found the video helpful, as I enjoyed filming it too. I'm sure there are lots of different techniques out there, but as a beginner myself, I stuck with what I learnt in evening class. We (Wally and I) have a blog where we have a write up about this video, it's at wandering-wallys.blog. Good luck with your project and, please, send me a picture of your efforts, you'll inspire others that way and me. xx

@@wanderingwallys1602 Thank you! I found your blog. Looking forward to journeying through it. I've finished the kitchen project and happy with results. How do I send pics?

@@judyevans6074 Hi Judy, Daft as it sounds we had to look into the piccy question! If you send your image to our blog email, we'll put it on the mosaic post in the reply section. We'll also try and put it here too. it's all a bit techy this - wish us luck! xx Our blog's email. thewanderingwallys@gmail.com

Thank you! All compliments greatly appreciated 😊

Thankyou Robert. We have really enjoyed sitting in the kitchen and seeing the mosaic out there in the chilly winter weather. It has definitely brightened up the garden. Thankfully it has survived the cold (-6 degs centigrade at times) unscathed.All the best Jen

Hello Joyce, so sorry to miss your comment, we've been working on our house. Thank goodness for Christmas, we were needing a break! Thank you for your kind comment.x

Thanks Shawna, Wally and I still like it, which lucky as it's right outside the kitchen doors! Hope you have a go at mosaicking too. It's a fun thing to do. x

Yes…I’m hooked on flower pot mosaicing!

@@shawnas464 I love mosaic on pots. That curved surface truly lends itself to mosaicking. Even a beginner like me can acheive a swish look in a relatively short time; how cool is that? x

Obrigado voce é muito gentil Nalva. x

Sorry this reply is a year late! I used a 2" wide stainless steel mesh which had a bead (smooth) edge - I think it's for rendering window reveals in building work. I screwed a strip along the top and bottom (you'll need metal washers to stop the screw heads pulling through the mesh), with the beading as a smart boundary/outline top and bottom and the mesh strips inside the mosaicing (?) area. You can se the beading as a line bordering the finished work, if you take a close look at the finished wall. All the best - Jen.

Hi Tlicious, Good question. I'm in the UK where we also have rain, freeze (-8C max here in the south), thaw. I'd say that any hard baked ceramics are safe - porcelain type items. The ceramics where you can scrape away the inner material the a blade might take up water and pop when frozen. Also, for outdoors, my tutor recommends avoiding wood as a backing medium; mine's on a block wall. What I'd do is , perhaps, stick some pieces to a block/brick/old tile/plate (something that simulates your chosen surface) by using outdoor tile cement and grout. Then leave it outside, over the winter. Prop it up at about the same angle and in about the same place as your intended project. Next spring you'll have a worked example of your project. You may even have a small item you can use elsewhere. Good luck, and if you finish your mosaic, please send me a picture, as I'd love to see what you've been up to. Jen

Hi Dawn, Lot to dig into here! This is my third mosaic, which means I'm no expert, but I can offer some sensible ideas. The painted wall: I'd suggest you remove or scratch/score its surface - only where the mosaic is to go - a wire brush (attached to a drill if it's a big area) will be ok. My wall was built with a strip left with no top coat of render on it.This was especially for the mosaic, in the hope that most of the mosaic would be flush/level with the surface of the rest of the wall. The 'stainless steel render edging mesh' was put in by the builder at the time the wall was being rendered. This mesh gave a bit of a matrix for my grout to cling to and, also, a nice, crisp, rolled edge, top and bottom. You can also buy this mesh in sheets and screw it in place - you'll need washers too as the screw heads are too small to grip the mesh. Buy the mesh from a building supply company, a plastic version is also available, there might be something you could reuse that would also serve this purpose and save the planet. Render, or in your case, grout stays in place permanently this way, and you won't have to remove/scratch up your paint. I planned my mosaic so that it would be made in half metre long strips, each one placed so that if I lost the will to finish it (it is a major undertaking), I would have a series of nice panels equally spaced along my wall. I then added intermediate panels and then, I filled in all the gaps. You could consider this, as there's nothing sadder than a part finished mosaic that peters out, it looks so sad. Wally n I have a blog where there's a write up about the mosaic wandering-wallys.blog Our blog is in sections and most posts have some of our dodgy art included - you have been warned ;) I/we may do a few other arty you tube postings in the future. I've got a stained glass project in November and may film that for folks to 'enjoy?' That's enough from me! All the best and thank you so much for your kind words and interest. xx

@@wanderingwallys1602 Thank you so much for taking the time to give me such detailed advice :-) Thats a brilliant idea about not taking the paint off but screwing a panel on instead. Please do post your stained glass project, you make things look easy, so that other people can have a go. Your wall looked stunning, especially after you painted it blue.Its great to have unique artwork. Thanks again, keep posting.xx

@@dawnstanley7340 Hi Dawn, Thank you for your kindness, it's much appreciated. I'll pop up the stained glass panel ... eventually! My lovely mentor Johannes is in quarantine as his wife has Covid, right when we were due to get together in his studio, to have a couple of days working together; typical :( I don't do glass at home, because I'm nervous about shards of glass around the place - I know, I'm a wimp! Hopefully we can reschedule soon and you can have a look at my next project. Watch this space. Jen xx

It's basic physics. They only move if you change their equilibrium :) I scrounged takeaway cartons from everyone I knew and sorted my shards and seaglass and general bits n bobs by colour and type (very old/very modern/chunky stuff etc). it seemed to work. Jen

@@wanderingwallys1602 where do you store them

Hello again Joyce, a very chilled Christmas Jen here again. All our videos are under the title Wandering Wallys on You Tube and Wandering-Wallys will find our blog with links to all the videos, examples of our decidedly dodgy art and the ways we kill time before time kills us ...... If you have any other problems (of the tech type!) please let me know. x

KMF, There were no colours! This project was a bit freestyle, and my 'palette was limited to aqua colours which could be placed anywhere. The pictures/templates could be coloured in as a guide to where to place each colour, which would be really helpful in some situations. There are no set rules, so why not give it a go and see how it goes? I'd love to see your attempts. Jen

@@wanderingwallys1602 I do wish I could post a picture of my bathroom and kitchen backsplashes in the comments but KZfaq doesn't let you do that. My bathroom is a water theme with seashells and glass gems along with some tiles I had of horses running on the beach through water. My kitchen is a cactus with the sunset in the middle and on one side was a horse head and the other side was a cross. It also has a lot of freeform design around and between those focal points in both rooms. This was all done from broken dishes and colored glass I got from vases. I've also done another cross that I will be installing on my front door. I made it with colored glass, beads, broken mirror peices, some small crosses, and a Miraculous Medal. It will be a challenge to grout.

@@KMF3 wish I could see them

Sorry Gary, it's the first talkie I've done. Some of them are a bit better now. Jen

@@wanderingwallys1602 Intended as a helpful hint..............

Hi Dominique, I chose grey grout for this project because it looked like a better match than white. I suspect route can be coloured by you, if you fancy something a bit unusual - cement colourant? The white and grey options in swimming pool grade grout are widely available. All the best, Jen

@@wanderingwallys1602 Thanks for taking the time to reply! Really helpful and I appreciate it! :)