Table of Morjo matches and closest substitutions for Elementile colors.
Plastic Storage Jar Square-Grip Clear PET 32oz is perfect for storing and displaying glass mosaic tile. The square shape makes these jars stack efficiently in a small bookshelf. The clear plastic makes the contents visible, which is essential for storing studio materials that are chosen on sight. Holds about 2 to 3 pounds of tile.
Mosaic tile should be displayed side by side in the studio so that the artist can select just the right color. These clear plastic jars make this possible. We arrange our shelves in “rainbow order” (red-orange-yellow-green-blue-purple-pink) plus browns and black-white-grays. This allows use to find colors quickly, and so we always return the colors to this order, but during a studio session, we are constantly pulling out jars and placing them in different combinations. This is how we quickly evaluate different color schemes for a mosaic before we even start taking tile out of the jar.
For more advice on designing your mosaic project or mounting, cutting, and grouting tile, please see our page of Mosaic Frequently Asked Questions or our Mosaic Information Guide, which lists instructional pages described by topic. We also post new articles about making mosaics at our How to Mosaic Blog.
Plastic Storage Jar Square-Grip Clear PET 48oz is perfect for storing and displaying glass mosaic tile. The square shape makes these jars stack efficiently in a small bookshelf. The clear plastic makes the contents visible, which is essential for storing studio materials that are chosen on sight.
Mosaic tile should be displayed side by side in the studio so that the artist can select just the right color. These clear plastic jars make this possible. We arrange our shelves in “rainbow order” (red-orange-yellow-green-blue-purple-pink) plus browns and black-white-grays. This allows use to find colors quickly, and so we always return the colors to this order, but during a studio session, we are constantly pulling out jars and placing them in different combinations. This is how we quickly evaluate different color schemes for a mosaic before we even start taking tile out of the jar.
For more advice on designing your mosaic project or mounting, cutting, and grouting tile, please see our page of Mosaic Frequently Asked Questions or our Mosaic Information Guide, which lists instructional pages described by topic. We also post new articles about making mosaics at our How to Mosaic Blog.
N95 Comfort Dust Mask has braided headbands, an exhalation valve, and an adjustable nose clip to make wearing it more comfortable. This is a a 3M brand 8511 particulate dust mask that meets NIOSH and OSHA standards and is rated at N95. The N95 rating means they capture 95% of all particles 0.3 microns in diameter or larger. We wear these when mixing grout and thinset mortar.
Keep in mind that dust masks are only part of a strategy to prevent breathing dust. You should also mimimize the amount of dust you generate by pouring and mixing carefully and using spray bottles to mist the grout as you mix it.
The masks are not individually wrapped, so keep the box closed during storage to prevent incidental contamination.
Vacuum off used masks before storing them in individual Ziplock sandwich bags labeled with the student’s name.
For more advice on designing your mosaic project or mounting, cutting, and grouting tile, please see our page of Mosaic Frequently Asked Questions or our Mosaic Information Guide, which lists instructional pages described by topic. We also post new articles about making mosaics at our How to Mosaic Blog.
Update in Nov 2024:Our Plywood Mosaic Backer Boards are cut from 1/2-inch cabinet-grade plywood (either maple or birch based on availability) and are suitable for indoor mosaic projects such as plaques and trivets. The edges are unfinished cuts, which can be left as is or painted with a neutral color of acrylic paint, stained with wood stain, etc.
The faces of some boards may have small splinters missing from the sawing process, but these will be covered by the mosaic.
The Mosaic Backer Boards are plywood and are meant for indoor use only.
Ideally, the bare side of the wood should be painted with dilute Weldbond or another PVA adhesive to make sure that the wood doesn’t suck water out of the grout while it is curing. You can dilute the Weldbond 1:1 with water to help it spread more easily on the wood. However, many mosaic artists get enough glue smeared over the face of the wood while they are mounting the tile, and so this step of sealing the wood with dilute glue is not necessary for them.
The important thing to remember about pre-sealing is that you would never want to use paint or wood sealers on anything else (other than a PVA glue) because these other materials are likely to interfere with the glue or delaminate over the years.
The pattern for your mosaic can be drawn directly on the wood with an ordinary pencil. You should do this before coating the wood with Weldbond. If you forget, you can draw the pattern on the wood with a Sharpie marker after the dilute Weldbond dries.
Make sure that your tile doesn’t stick out beyond the edge of the wood, which would make it particularly vulnerable to being knocked loose or chipped by random blows over time.
Wood of any type including plywood should NEVER be used for outdoor mosaics and wet mosaics because wood swells and contracts with changes in humidity, which will cause tile to pop off long before the plywood begins to show signs of warping. For outdoor mosaic projects, you must use stone or concrete if you want the mosaic to last for more than a year or two. For wall murals, mount the mosaic directly on a stone or masonry wall or use concrete backer board such as sold for underlaying bathroom tiling. For garden mosaics, use slabs of field stone or concrete stepping stones. Remember to scuff these with a wire brush to remove contaminants, sealers and loose material before mounting the mosaic with thinset mortar.
Indoor mosaics not subject to water can be made on plywood to save weight. There is no need to use stone or concrete backer board as the backer or thinset mortar to attach the tiles. Instead, the tiles can be mounted using a white PVA adhesive such as Weldbond and then grouted.
For more advice on designing your mosaic project or mounting, cutting, and grouting tile, please see our page of Mosaic Frequently Asked Questions or our Mosaic Information Guide, which lists instructional pages described by topic. We also post new articles about making mosaics at our How to Mosaic Blog.
Our Mosaic Art Glass Assortment includes 2-lbs of American-made stained glass pieces for making mosaic artwork. With opaque mosaic work surfaces in mind, we choose pieces for pigment density and opacity. These assortments offer a great way to sample a wide variety of stained glass types and colors. We also sell individual colors of stained glass in 6-inch sheets if you need an individual color. Piece size varies, but we try to cut pieces 2 to 3 inches wide, so there should be fewer pieces measuring 1 inch or less. Cutting Scrap will have smaller pieces.
Each two-pound bag is approximately 1.25 square feet of stained glass. If you cut these pieces into mosaic tiles of about 3/4 inch or less and use a grout gap of 1/16 inch, then the bag could cover 1.5 square feet.
Stained glass is approximately 1/8 inch thick and therefore nominally the same as most of the glass mosaic tile we sell. We also have 3/4-inch stained glass tiles.
Mosaic Art Glass cuts quickly with minimal force using our Mosaic Glass Cutters. Caution: Stained glass is usually sharper than regular molded glass mosaic tile. Extra care must be used in cutting, handling, and grouting to ensure that sharp edges are not left exposed. One technique to knock off the razor slivers from freshly-cut stained glass edges (called flash or groze) is to swirl pieces around in a plastic bucket with a little water. The Rubbing Stone and Marble File we sell are useful for smoothing sharp edges and are recommended when the mosaic is for a wall or architectural element.
The traditional stained glass artists’ tool for smoothing edges is the Grozing Pliers, but the Rubbing Stones and Marble Files produce smoother edges and can round off sharp points and corners.
If you need an individual color or found one you especially liked in an assortment, see our 6-inch stained glass sheet selection.
For more advice on making mosaic art, please see our page of Mosaic Frequently Asked Questions or our Mosaic Information Guide, which lists instructional pages described by topic. We also post new articles about making mosaics at our How to Mosaic Blog.
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We receive school, church and camp project questions every week, so we know how to make things easy and help you save money!
The 3/8-inch vitreous tile is recommended when cutting is to be avoided, but keep in mind that the 3/4-inch size is cheaper and can easily be cut into quarters that are the same size as the 3/8-inch tile. For more ideas on how to source inexpensive materials, click here.
Many types of tile can be easily used to create fun and simple to design ‘pixel art’ style mosaics based on your own designs or even video game characters. Students can be instructed how to make their designs on graph paper in colored pencil before laying them out in tile using a grid. We carry grids in most common sizes to make the process painless!
Benches, tables and other outdoor furniture are popular group projects for kids. We have a ton of information on our blog about outdoor mosaic materials an methods. Keep in mind that the materials used for a mosaic which is to survive exposure to the elements aren’t the same as indoor mosaics. Review our guide on outdoor mosaic for details.
For smaller projects, coaster sized mosaic bases can be used to great effect! The designs can be very simple and freely executed with much satisfaction. In fact, this type of small project can be a fantastic, low stress introduction to mosaic for kids and adults alike.
Materials used in the projects on this page:
All children should be given adequate adult supervision. Wear safety glasses with side shields when cutting glass or mixing grout.
While many forms of mosaic involve cutting glass with cutters, nippers or pistol-grip cutters – uncut tiles can be handled safely and used to build a satisfying mosaic without cutting. However, children should be instructed in sound handling practice, as even a molded tile can occasionally have a sharp edge.
Our line of 12mm Morjo tile is easy to handle with safe rounded edges.
It also comes in a full spectrum of colors as well as iridescent varieties.
Note that it is often easiest to grout the children’s mosaics for them outside the class or session for several reasons. First, the glue needs to dry a day or two before you grout. Also grouting is the messy and mildly hazardous part, and the focus of the children’s work should be the creation of their own unique design and gluing the tiles. Many instructors report having some of the older children help with some of the labor of grouting with great success, but all agree that having an entire class play with wet concrete is a bad idea, especially with young children. Always read manufacturer’s safety instructions on grout and glue. Keep in mind that even whole glass tile can be sharp due to occasional chips and breaks that occur with shipping and handling.
Grout can be purchased cheaply in large bags at building material stores. Our packages are small convenience packs for individual projects, and they require a shipping charge to get to you.
A popular project for church and camp mosaics is a 6-inch x 6-inch mosaic trivet. The best backer for 6×6 trivets is 1/2-inch cabinet-grade plywood which comes pre-sanded. We sell plywood mosaic backers for small projects, but you can buy a sheet of plywood and skill saw to cut it much more cheaply than you could buy the expensive backers from one of the craft websites! Ask one of the parents or a friend if they could cut up the plywood. Someone probably already has a saw and a truck to pick up the plywood.
Instead of buying a separate convenience bottle of glue for each child, you should buy a jug of Weldbond glue and pour a little bit for each child in a styrofoam plate. They can use popsicle sticks to apply the glue.
MorjoTM Vitreous 3/4″ Tile and MorjoTM Vitreous 3/8″ Tile are our most affordable glass tiles. Read our guide on inexpensive sources of mosaic tile by clicking here.
Mosaic project kits may at first seem like an easy solution, but most popular kits we’ve reviewed have poor quality materials (sometimes even plastic tiles!) in quantities that make them much more expensive than ordering individual materials would be. It’s much better to plan the project out and order all the materials at once, avoiding extra shipping charges. Furthermore, kits are usually marketed with eye catching ‘results’ that can leave a young mind disappointed and stifle their self expression. Joe has stated about craft kits in general, “The kits were about producing over-the-top results instead of experiencing a traditional art form in the way it had been experienced for generations. But even that statement does not adequately explain what was wrong. The kits were about PROMISING over-the-top results, but they were pretty weak in the delivery.”
We accept purchase orders! Read our Purchase Order instructions by clicking here.
Still have unanswered questions about your project or how to order? We’re happy to help with any step of the project. Contact us via email by clicking here. We respond to e-mails faster than any other type of inquiry!
