Metallic Glass Mosaic Tiles Assortment 3/8-Inch are sold loose by the 1/2-lb (approximately 320+ pieces) for use in art and craft and as an architectural surface covering. Mounting grids and mounting paper are available for laying up designs. The sintered copper dust embedded in the glass gives it a permanent sparkle that is more classic than the glitter tiles sold in the craft market.
METALLIC Glass Mosaic Tiles Assortment 3/8-Inch 1/2-lb
- tile size: 3/8 inch (10mm)
- thickness: 1/8 nominal (4mm)
- sales unit: half pound (320+ pieces)
- material: glass
- variety: metallic (copper dust embedded in glass)
- pigments: colorfast, UV resistant
- durability: frost-proof, impervious to liquid
- usage: suitable for indoor and outdoor use
Coverage
One half pound of ~320 tiles will cover approximately 0.4 square feet assuming a standard grout gap of approximately 1/32 inch. To cover 1 square foot with the standard grout gap for this size, 796 tiles are needed. Most mosaic mounting paper is 1.15 square feet and requires 841 tiles (29 tiles x 29 tiles). Use our tile estimator to calculate how much you need for your project.
Compatibility
Tile thickness is 1/8 inch nominal, the same as most of the glass mosaic tile we sell, which means that these can be used with other types and brands. Never assume that colors of different sizes will match exactly even if they have the same name because they often come from different manufacturer batches.
Cutting Tile
The Mosaic Glass Cutter is recommended for cutting all types of glass mosaic tile including these. Note that there is a limit to how small 3/8-inch tile can be cut because the sides of the tiles are tapered, and small pieces tend to fall over. We cut halves and quarters and diagonal triangles but do not try to go small than that, at least most of the time. If you are making the fine details of your image and need to cut smaller, you can lean pieces against each other, but that can get tedious.
Use in Mosaic Art
The Aventurine brand includes enough different colors so that an image could be rendered with these alone, but they are more often used with other types of glass tile for figurative designs and in mixed-media mosaic craft projects such as stepping stones. Tip: instead of placing them as single square tiles between other materials, arrange them in short swirling rows. You can even do this figurative art: Make your sky from swirling rows of tile (which is always preferable to a grid arrangement) and put a few intermittent rows of sparkling tiles in for contrast and visual interest.
How To Make Mosaics
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.
Smalti Sample Board contains all the colors of Mud Turtle Mosaic™ brand smalti that we currently carry. The factory makes some intermediate tints in addition to the tints shown on the board, but we don’t carry those simply because they are hard to distinguish from the tints we already have. We carry all the factory’s hues. The rest of the information below describes the smalti:
Smalti is traditional hand-cut mosaic glass that has a different look and feel from molded tile. It is the glass to use for reproducing religious icons, antique mosaic art, or making modern interpretations of classical designs. It is sold by the 1/4 pound, which is 40+ pieces on average.
Mud Turtle Mosaic™ brand smalti is a next-generation smalti. It looks like ordinary smalti (non-molded hand-cut rectangles), but it can be cut more predictably and cleanly with less waste and fewer shards, which often an issue with smalti. Avoid having to discard a significant percentage of your expensive materials as cutting scrap. This brand cuts more efficiently because of how it is poured and cooled. With Mud Turtle Mosaic™ smalti, extra care is taken to ensure that the mixture is more homogeneous and that little or no cold seams are formed during the pouring of the molten material out on the slab. The result is that are fewer blobs and swirls and fault plains inside the glass. These artificial internal structures are what causes regular smalti to break in such odd ways and form such vicious finger-poking shards. With this brand, there are also fewer surface pits and crevices for grouts and mortars to contaminate.
