How My friend Karen Taught Me to Mosaic a Paver

Paver- make sure it is clean. Seal with Ornamental Sealer-
should be a milky looking liquid that you use a paintbrush
and paint on. Concrete absorbs a lot of liquid, so if you
don't put this layer of seal on, it will try to absorb the
liquid from your glue and grout and it will mean the piece
will crack/fail over time. One coat of this is sufficient,
and all over, all sides/edges.

The second product you need is what they call there
'thinset'. It is a cement based adhesive for tiles and
ceramics. You ask for thinset, and I think flexible thinset,
and it comes in white or creamy colours I think- maybe even
black. It is in a powder form, and you mix it in a throw
away container with a small amount of water until it looks
like peanut paste. Only make enough of this to use for each
session you plan, because apparently it goes hard and
doesn't last. They say you get used to mixing it up and
making enough...this is just a case where less is best.

You use this thinset with a wooden stirrer and 'butter' the
back of what you plan to stick down. Then you stick it down.
You sill see that some comes up the side of the piece, but
don't put on too much so that you are filling all the gaps
with the thinset. This is the job later- of the grout. I
suggest white thinset if you are using glass gems etc,
because the colour of the glass looks better. White is also
fine for tiles.

So really all there is to do is to design what pattern you
want. You can do that with pencil directly onto the paver
cos you won't see it later. You can do this before you put
your layer of sealer on.

I don't use thinset, but I think it dries fairly quickly. I
think if you make a mistake you have to really price it off.
But you will work it out. It really comes down to practice.

So make your design and stick all the pieces down, and
don't leave huge gaps between the tiles. You will have a
stronger piece if you only leave a few millimetres gap
between.

Let it dry for a day.

Then the third product you need is a flexible sanded grout.
You should be able to buy this from the hardware store as
well. Grout comes in lots of colours. I mainly use black
because I like bright colours and dark grout, but you will
see when you buy it there are white, cream, green, brown,
all kinds of colours. I am no good offering help with
choosing grout colours. You can always look at my
photostream and my contacts list and go to any of their
mosaic sets and see what they use, and get some ideas. I
think I will always use black. I made one group of three
kitchen trivets where I used white, only because black
would have looked ridiculous, but all other things I have
made I have used black. We will see if that trend continues
or not.

You need to mix up the grout so it is a little like the
thinset, maybe a little runnier, and mix and mix and mix-
you will hear the sand in it...and get rid of all the
powder. It is like cream I guess, maybe not so runny though.
So you just put the grout on the stepper, making sure it
sits and covers the whole piece. Use those disposable
gloves, I always put two pairs on top of each other, because
one always gets a hole in it. Then you can take it off and
put another one on and still have clean hands. Grout stains
your hands and gets into your fingernails, and some people
have like an allergic reaction to it.

Help the grout with your fingers or like a cheap cake bowl
scraper to assist the grout into all the gaps of the mosaic.
If you have too much grout for the job, scrape it from your
bowl and put on newspaper. DO NOT WASH GROUT down the sink.
It will sit in your pipes and eventually set them like
concrete.

When the top of the mosaic is looking a little cloudy, get
say a quarter of a piece of paper towel- I cut about 20 into
quarters for each grouting job..... and gently yes GENTLY
rub off the grout from the tiles. This takes some practise,
but just make sure you are only removing the grout from the
tiles, not from the gaps in between- you want it to stay
strong. Just do a rough job the first time, and gently
expose each of the tiles. If I am using gems I get a
shaslick stick and gently go around the gem to make sure
enough of it is exposed. Some people wait till the final
clean up and use a toothbrush around the edges of the gems
exposing more. Be gentle doing this. Then clean it a bit
more. It should be stronger now and happy for you to be
cleaning it. If all your pieces of glass or tile are all at
around the same height the cleaning should be easy. All
things come with practise. You will probably need to clean
it a few times until you are left with a lovely shiney
beautiful paver that you have made.

The last thing you need to do is let it dry for 24 hours
and then paint it with a grout sealer. It will penetrate the
grout, and just sit on the glass, tile. So paint it on, and
then wipe over with a paper towel again. Usually one, coat
is enough. Then it is ready to use outside. Just be careful
when walking on stepping stones especially if you use glass,
as sometime when they are wet they may be slippery.
Sometimes ceramic tile is less slippery. The glass gems are
good though cos they are uneven- give you some grip.