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Mosaic techniques for outdoor table tops, patio floors, fountains or birdbaths

Our regular mosaic instructions page is written for indoor mosaics not subject to standing water such as a shower floor. For these indoor mosaics, wood can be used as a backer, and we recommend the “glue-then-grout” method using Weldbond glue, a water-based PVA adhesive with no fumes.

However, outdoor mosaics and wet mosaics like pools and fountains require different backers and cements. First, wood should never be used as a backer for outdoor mosaics, even those kept relatively dry. The reason is that wood swells and contracts due to humidity changes in the air, and tiles will start to fall off eventually, and usually sooner than expected. Instead of wood, use 1/4″ concrete backer board for your outdoor mosaic projects. For attaching the tiles, use thinset mortar instead of adhesive. Thinset and concrete backer board is available at building material stores.

We carry convenience sized thinset mortar here.

All that being said, if you do want to mosaic something wooden for outdoors, such as a mosaic birdhouse, use thinset mortar to attach the tiles and make sure that every surface of the birdhouse not covered in mosaic is covered in multiple coats of exterior paint. You should seal the mosaic with multiple applications of a tile and grout sealer a few days after the grout cures. Even then, the life expectancy of such a project will be relatively short if exposed to the elements.

Do not use wood as a backer for outdoor mosaics. Use 1/4″ concrete backer board, which is available at building material stores and is cut by scoring with box cutter and snapped along a straight edge. Masonry, concrete and stone are also good outdoor mosaic backers. Masonry can be smoother by plastering with thinset a few days (preferably 2 weeks) before the mosaic is applied. Fieldstone and pre-made concrete stepping stones from the lawn and garden center are good for smaller projects such as mosaic plaques and mosaic stepping stones. All stone, masonry and concrete should be scoured with a wire brush prior to applying thinset in order to remove contaminant and invisible concrete sealers which could interfere with bonding.

Avoid the use of terracotta bases for outdoor mosaics, as they can be extremely susceptible to freezing damage.

Read more about outdoor backer materials and methods in our article, “Backers for Outdoor Garden Mosaics.”

Use thinset mortar instead of adhesives for outdoor mosaics. Most people find it is easier to mix up small batches of thinset than it is to use a solvent-based adhesive.

We use Versabond brand thinset which comes in a 50-pound bag. Buy a 5-gallon plastic bucket with lid at the same store you buy the thinset and put the bag directly into the bucket without emptying it (which would create an enormous amount of dust). The bucket helps contain dust and keeps humidity from ruining the mortar over time. Slit the top of the bag and use a long-handle spoon or garden shovel or ice scoop to take out what you need. The mixing ratio is 1/4 cup water per pound. Wear a dust mask and scoop and mix the thinset outdoors.

I have written some instructions for how to use thinset for detailed mosaic artwork where the artist wants to mount one tile at a time.

For outdoor projects, we will often use thinset mortar for grouting. We do this for two reasons: the thinset will match any thinset that squeezed up between the tiles, and thinset is harder than grout.

Glass tile is impervious to moisture penetration and therefore resistant to freeze damage. On the other hand, unglazed ceramic and tumble-finished stone are porous and highly susceptible to freeze damage. We avoid soft ceramics for use outdoors and always seal our finished mosaic with multiple applications of sealer to prevent damage. Even if glass tile is used, the porous grout is still vulnerable, so we always seal with multiple applications.

Outdoor mosaics should be sealed to protect against staining and freeze damage. There are two types of tile and grout sealers: penetrating pore sealer and coatings that form a membrane on the surface. Penetrating sealers soak into the pores of the grout, stone and ceramic. These pore sealers are usually made of latex or silicone, and they’re invisible. The membrane-forming sealers are coatings that create a hard, glossy finish and may change the color of the grout (usually by making it look darker). Concrete sealers tend to be of this second type.

TileLab SurfaceGard Penetrating Sealer made by Custom Building Products is a high-quality penetrating sealer. It’s water based, easy to apply, cleans up easily, and repels dirt, water, oil and stains. When applying a sealer, let it dry for two hours and then apply a drop of water to a grout line. If the water beads instead of soaking in, the grout is adequately sealed, which can usually be accomplished in two coats. I always put one additional coat to help ensure I plug any random pinholes.

Outdoor mosaic tables are often made by covering metal patio tables with concrete backer board insets which are then covered in mosaic. For any project using concrete backer board that is left exposed, it is important to seal the bottom and edges of the backer board to prevent water from penetrating the porous concrete. NOTE: You never want to seal any surface before mosaic is applied to it because the sealer will interfere with bonding.

We have tons more info on outdoor mosaic on our blog.

We recommend the following book for more information on outdoor mosaics:
Outdoor Mosaic: Original Weather-Proof Designs to Brighten Any Exterior Space by Emma Biggs and Tessa Hunkin

How To Make A Mosaic

These instructions are for an indoor mosaic not subjected to excess moisture. The mosaic process is similar for outdoor mosaics (such as pools and fountains) but thinset mortar is used outdoors instead of Weldbond adhesive. For wet mosaics such as shower floors, you also need to use thinset. Thinset is a sticky concrete with polymers added for strength, adhesion and water resistance.

More information on outdoor mosaics, specialized topics and advanced mosaic methods can be found on our Outdoor Mosaic Guide.

Our FAQ page also contains additional mosaic instructions, tips on using thinset and answers to many specific mosaic questions. It is constantly being expanded and has solutions for many common mosaic problems. Also, here are some tips on how to avoid disasters while grouting.

For an indoor project not subjected to moisture, it is very simple:

1. Draw a simple “cartoon” (outline) on the mosaic surface. You can copy a mosaic pattern from a coloring book or your favorite pattern of china or fabric. See our blog article on creating easy mosaic art patterns from photos and images.

We carry everything you might need to make a mosaic:

See the Mosaic Tips below for more help with your mosaic.

Mosaic Tips from Our Resident Mosaic Artist

• Start simple.
• Make a small mosaic plaque before you mosaic a wall or floor. That way you can work out your materials and methods before the big job.
• How can you draw a design? Simple drawings like those in a coloring book work best. The color and the details come when you add the tile and glass. I always sketch something on paper and then come home and draw a simple cartoon on my plywood or concrete board using a magic marker. If drawing is a sore spot, you can create mosaic patterns easily without drawing as well.
• My first rule of grouts is to choose a contrasting color. If you use white grout with white tile or grey grout with grey tiles, then the tiles don’t stand out from the grout, and most of the detail of your design will be lost. When in doubt, black grout is usually the answer.
• My personal second rule of grouts is that DARKER GROUTS ALMOST ALWAYS LOOK BETTER. I have almost always been disappointed when using plain white grout. White grout makes a nice mosaic look like a summer camp project! Try an off-white or light beige if you think you need a light color. Also remember that grouts are much darker while they are wet and get lighter as they cure.
• Don’t know anything about glues, grouts or tiling? Your local hardware store or handyman is a mosaic expert even though they’ve never made one. (You might not know anyone who has made a mosaic, but you probably know someone who has tiled a bathroom or kitchen. The technical skills are very similar.)
• Use a wheeled glass cutter to cut glass and smalti. Use a tile nipper to cut ceramic tiles, china and other dishes.
• Always wear safety glasses when cutting tile or glass or mixing grout. (Grout is mildly caustic and has sand and grit in it.) Making a mosaic can be fun but you should always be careful.
• Grout mosaics outside. It’s a messy process. Look at books on home improvement for basic techniques of grouting if you’re not sure. Keep grout damp as it cures and do not allow it to dry out rapidly, otherwise it will crumble. Remember, the grout is binding water internally in a chemical process as it cure. It is NOT drying.
• Keep mosaic tiles and supplies out of reach of children. Use caution when handling the broken glass and ceramics.
• Spend a little more time on your mosaic. Don’t rush and don’t think about what you want to make next. It can make a world of difference in your satisfaction.
• Avoid plywood as a backer unless you can seal the edges and bottom. Wood materials absorb water over time and warp, and then grout and tiles pop off. You might not be trying to recreate a timeless Roman mosaic that will endure for centuries, but at least make something that will last 2 or 3 years. Use plywood at least 1/2″ thick inside and concrete or concrete board outside. Always use concrete or concrete board as the base of any mosaic that will be walked on. Concrete board can be purchased from building material stores. A common brand name is Wonderboard. For my indoor mosaics, I laminate 1/4″ Wonderboard to cabinet grade plywood backers.
• The best all-around glue for making mosaics is Weldbond. It is a water-based adhesive that looks and handles just like plain white glue, yet it cures stronger than many of the smelly solvent-based glues. The manufacturer’s brochure calls it “the most versatile, non-toxic, non-flammable adhesive on the North American market.” I agree. It bonds to hundreds of different materials and is very water-resistant once it dries. It cleans up easy with soap and water.
• If you make a mistake, don’t be afraid to pry some of the tiles off if you don’t like what you see. (Wear goggles or safety glasses with side shields.)
• I always wait for a week or two before I grout a piece. That way I have a chance to change things before they are literally set in concrete.
• Simple and crude can also be noble. It’s ok if your art has blemishes and mistakes. That’s what makes it interesting and keeps it from looking like it was made on an assembly line. Don’t try to make it a perfect reproduction of anything, and you’ll probably be much happier with the time spent and the results.
• Avoid making copies of phony arts-n-crafts stuff. There’s way too much of that around. Make your mosaic YOUR way and it will be genuine art in the highest sense of the word.

Legal Disclaimer and Copyright Information

No warranty is implied by these instructions. Use at your own risk. Please wear goggles when cutting mosaic materials or mixing grout. Mosaic materials are often sharp. Keep out of reach of children. Do not overload patio tables with mosaic materials so that the table becomes unstable (top heavy). You should also make sure that the table frame can support the overall weight. Copyright 2009 J.E. Moorman. Please link to these instructions freely, but email us if you would like to reproduce them for classes, etc.

Ideas for small mosaic projects for beginners with examples

Mosaic Trivets and Mosaic Plaques

The best beginner’s project is a small trivet or plaque made on 1/2 inch plywood. I recommend cabinet-grade plywood which comes with a sanded finish. Many times you can get plenty of plywood in the scrap bin from a home remodeling job. Note that your backer doesn’t need to be perfectly square. Irregular triangles and rectangles and trapezoids work as well as squares. Remember to be “artistic” and “color outside the lines.”

If you desire to make a mosaic shape like a star or a cat or a sun, then 1/2 inch sanded plywood is still the best way to go. You can buy an entire sheet of plywood and a jigsaw to cut it with for not much more than what most craft websites charge for mosaic backers. Another advantage of cutting your own shape is that your project is more likely to look like YOUR art instead of some factory-made craft kit, which is all I can think of when I see the mosaic shapes or mosaic backers sold elsewhere.

The exposed edges of your plywood backer can be painted with a neutral color of acrylic paint or even latex house paint. You don’t always have to buy something special to make art, and you can often use what you happen to have on hand. In fact, using re-purposed materials usually adds an extra dimension of creativity to your project.

Displaying small mosaic plaques is simple: they can rest on a table as a coaster or trivet to hold hot plates, or they can be displayed on a small plate easel, such as people use to display fine china plates.

Mosaic Christmas ornament by Jim Hopton constructed on a 2.5″ Styrofoam ball using glass mosaic tile and antique china shards found along the shores of the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh, PA. I recommend threading a wire loop all the way through the Styrofoam ball before mosaicing to make sure that the heavy mosaic ornament has something secure to tie the string to. Craft stores sell little hoops with spikes that stick into the Styrofoam less than an inch, but that would not hold a heavier ornament. Our mosaic ornament kit comes built ready to hold the weight of tile and grout.

Mosaic Mirror by Melanie Berry makes use of broken dinnerware and broken talavera tile from Mexico, which is a soft terracotta tile with a colorful glaze of primary colors in traditional patterns. Keep in mind that you can make your own mosaic mirrors from plywood and mirror stock. One sheet of 1/2-inch plywood is used as a backer, and a second of 1/4 inch has a whole cut out for the mirror and forms a frame around the mirror. If this seems like extra work compared to buying something ready made, then remember that making your own allows you to make it exactly the size and shape you want. Tip: you don’t have to own a jigsaw or cut it out yourself. You probably have a friend or a friend’s partner that can do that for you.

Butterfly Mosaic Vase by Sandra Schwartz was made on a thick glass vase. Sandra reports that she coated the vase with Weldbond and allowed that to dry before gluing on tile. This makes the work of gluing on tile much easier because a surface of dried glue is less likely to allow tile to slide compared to a slick glass surface. I would recommend scuffing the glass with coarse-grit sandpaper before applying the first coat of glue.

Mosaic Mirror by Sandra Schwartz is a mixed-media mosaic that uses glass gems, glass mosaic tile and broken dinnerware.

A guide to finding and using repurposed and recycled mosaic materials in a responsible way.

Materials That Age Gracefully

Technically, you can make a mosaic from anything just as you can make art from anything, but if you say “mosaic” to mean a piece of durable artwork made from hard weather-resistant materials, then you have to resist the temptation to include things like plastic toy parts or wooden figurines or metal bottlecaps. Or keep the artwork indoors, which is fine. The point is that all the grout in the world will not make those materials more resistant to rust or humidity or degradation by the sun’s ultraviolet rays. In fact, concrete is mildly caustic and actually causes those materials to oxidize more rapidly when exposed to moisture.

All that being said, I love to use found and improvised materials in my own mosaics, and I have used wood and plastic and thin pieces of painted metal. BUT I used them in indoor mosaics. I did not tell myself any art-school babble about how natural and beautiful it would be to watch my art decompose and decay, etc., mainly because I have seen older found-object mosaics where the plastics and tins have eroded out, and they didn’t look interesting. They looked sad. Plastic does not age gracefully, especially when seen alongside glass and stone that look the same as they day they were installed.

There is also the environmental cost of making certain forms of art. If I want to make Tibetan butter sculptures, I will use butter. Then I can watch my artwork melt in the sun and listen to the Buddhist monks talk about the impermanence of life, etc. But if I use materials like grout and glass tile (materials which take a lot of fossil fuels to manufacture), then I will make sure that the artwork hangs around long enough to attempt to justify the environmental cost.

Recycled Materials

Recycled and repurposed materials commonly used for making mosaics:

• old china plates
• tea cups
• seashells
• beads
• ceramic pieces and figurines
• household tiles, used and stripped from walls or floors
• scrap glass
• broken mirror
• teeth, bone
• buttons
• marbles
• pebbles and beach stones
• typewriter keys
• jewelry
• small metal tools
• coins
• bottle caps
• nuts and bolts
• dice
• chandelier pieces
• old watches
• metal, glass and ceramic souvenirs

Keep in mind that many found objects such as bones and seashells are porous. This means that they can be stained by grout and that they can be damaged by freezing temperatures if water is allowed to soak into them. The solution to both issues is to seal the objects thoroughly with a tile and grout sealer. However you don’t want to get the sealer any place glue or grout needs to stick. We glue the objects down, then we take a small artists paint brush and coat the tops of the found objects with sealer, taking care to not let excess sealer run down the sides of the object where the grout needs to bond. After the mosaic has been grouted, we come back a few days later and seal the entire mosaic, grout and all.

Sourcing Materials

Here are a few places to check for recycled mosaic materials:

• Tile stores, flooring outlets and home improvement centers: ask the managers for broken and discontinued tiles.
• Look around the dumpsters at home improvement centers or tile shops for damaged discards.
• Neighborhood construction dumpsters and home renovations.
• Search your garage and those of your friends and family.
• Thrift stores.
• Garage sales.
• Craigslist-check the free listings.
• Freecycle.
• Discarded stained glass pieces from glass artists.

An example of how to design, tile and grout an outdoor mosaic on a cement backer.

The following is a case study of an outdoor mosaic by David Cater, using work-in-progress photos taken by the artist. We have a separate page which summarizes our general instructions for outdoor mosaics, but the example below gives lots of insight.

I was deeply touched by David’s project, especially how he hand set each tile. My first mosaic was made almost in a trance state where I had no concern for efficiency or how much work it took. I hand chipped broken china with an ordinary claw hammer and didn’t even take the time to get a tile nipper, even though that tool would have save me hours and hours. It really was a labor of love, and I see that in David’s project too.

In the text below, I explain how David executed his project, but I also make comments on how the mosaic could have been made with less labor.

Easy Method to Transfer and Enlarge Drawings

Simply use a ruler to draw a grid on your sketch. Then draw another grid on your larger surface. Notice that each square of the grid on the drawing contains just a little part of the drawing, usually just a few curved lines. Draw these same curved lines in same square of the large grid. You don’t even have to think about what you are drawing. Just copy what’s in each square, one square at a time. This makes it easy to enlarge and transfer outlines.