How I Got From There to Here! Part V - This Is It!

For a long time, I didn't want to stop using the artificial stone. It was so easy to cut and work with, I didn't have to be worried about my twins playing with it or finding pieces on the floor, but the colors weren't as bright or vibrant as I wanted. I can't quite believe it now, but I actually considered painting each and every stone before use so that I would have the exact colors I wanted. Fortunately, I came to my senses in time!

My work table (aka the kitchen island) remained empty of mosaics for some time while I considered what to do next. The need and drive to create was still there, but I wasn't finding the medium that meant the most to me. I was president of a group of mosaic artists who coordinated and set up exhibitions of our work throughout Colorado and we generally tried to come up with a theme for the displays. It was incredible to see how many ways the artists in our group could interpret each theme. For one exhibition we decided that each of us would use the same basic mirror as our base, the title for the exhibition was 'Mirror, Mirror on the Wall' and we could decorate the mirrors any way we chose.

I immediately wanted to do something different, I wanted to have words and phrases running across the frame of the mirror, but wasn't quite sure how I was going to achieve that. I started researching positive phrases online, things like 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' and 'Monday's child is fair of face'. I loved the idea so began to work out how to get those phrases onto the mirror. Glass wasn't the answer, there was no way I could cut all those letters and make them small enough. The stone wouldn't work either, it wasn't bright enough! I debated making my own clay tiles and inscribing the letters into them, but that would take far too long, plus I had never used polymer clay before and I had a deadline to make!

One Sunday, I left the twins with my husband and went out shopping. Wandering around my local craft store I discovered that I could buy letter beads, I didn't know that! I found some beads that were just like scrabble tiles and I was ecstatic! I found letter beads in bright day-glo colors, cubes and rounds, I found pastels and black on white. It was like being in a sweet shop (that would be a candy store for all my American friends!) I loved them all. I spent a small fortune on beads and hurried home with my 'loot'!

The mirror took a little while to work out. First I had to spell out all the phrases I planned to use, and invariably found I didn't have enough vowels in my stash so would have to run out to the craft store again! I also needed to work out the positioning very carefully, as I couldn't cut the beads to fit, but eventually things came together. I also added small glass tiles to my work and filled any odd gaps with seed beads. I was very pleased with the end result and loved the texture of the beads, their placement with the glass tile and the color and light on the entire mirror.

I had found my niche! Beads were what I wanted to use. They provided me with all the color and light reflecting properties of glass but without sharp pieces or grouting. I was well aware I was going to spend a lot of money, but I was totally happy with the new medium I had found!