Mosaic Dulcimer

Well, it's finished; it took about 3 weeks, beginning with cutting my tiles from sheets of stained glass. I cut about 90% of the tiles in this project. I like to do that because the finished piece seems more like mine than when I buy them precut. As you'll see, the tiles for the back of the dulcimer are, shall we say, untraditional? My way of doing mosaics appeals to me, mostly because it challenges me to make do.

I grew up poor, nothing wrong with that, and mostly I'm glad I didn't have the proverbial silver spoon in my mouth. We were country poor, and by that I mean we had food, shelter and clothing, and most everyone around us was poor, too, so we didn't consciously know it or dwell on it. A few people in town, like C. C. Pierson, who owned the hardware store, roller rink, furniture store, and movie theater were considered rich, but by today's standards I think even C.C. wasn't that well off.

Back then, nobody ever thought of having the government support them, and we knew that we only could have what our parents provided with their hard work. That's a good thing to grow up knowing, and another thing, probably the most valuable lesson that my mother taught me was how to make do with what's at hand. She's creative that way, and if she wanted a flower bed out front, she gathered rocks and a sack of concrete and went to work building one. She sewed most of my clothes, and I'd walk down to the mercantile store and buy 3 yards of colorful fabric for $1.00 and a 35 cent Butterick pattern, dream up my own version of it, and she'd sew me an outfit as pretty as any in the J.C. Penny catalog. Once a friend gave her a long, wool coat, and though it fit her well, and she didn't have a long coat, she took it apart, cut it down, and gave it to me. I thought it was beautiful. And that's the feeling I get from creating with mosaic tiles. Here's how I did this one:

I used a glass cutter, grinder, snips and breaking tool, sand paper, alcohol, tweezers, glue, marking pen, and grout. I'd had the dulcimer for 30 years and thought it looked nice on the mantle but didn't have any remorse at taking it out to the shop and prepping it by roughing it up with sand paper. There are several ways of laying out and applying tiles; my way is to experiment with small sections and then glue them down.

The only part I don't like is the grout. It's messy and ugly, and once it's applied, it looks as if my jewels got stuck in mud, which is exactly what has happened.

Grout is meant to be a drab background for the sparkly treasures, but I experiemented this time and applied an acrylic, pearlized wash over it; I love the look, just enough of a sheen to compliment my sparkly tiles.

Actually, I was pleased with the whole thing, after I created some faux frets and added new strings.



Oh yeah, and here's the hypertufa leaf I made a while back. I painted it after the 28 day wait for it to finish drying. Waiting is the hardest part. And now I'm off on a couple of new artsy crafty adventures; I'll share them with you when they're finished. Have a happy, creative day!

Hypertufa Workshop

It was a dark and stormy Saturday morning..........Lou Madrew (yes, her name rhymes) and I had planned to go to an all-day workshop to learn how to make hypertufa, and with an 80% chance of rain predicted for the whole day, we considered cancelling, but when I called Kandy, she said, "It's not raining here! C'mon, and we'll have a great day!" So, we went, thinking maybe she would reschedule when the rain moved back into North Little Rock. But the rain never came (no more than a few drizzles), and we did have one of the most fun workshops I've ever attended.

I won't go into the history, recipes and techniques of hypertufa, but Google will pull up over 400,000 sites where you can learn more if you're interested. Basically, it's a medium using Portland cement, vermiculite, peat moss, and sand and can be poured and molded into all kinds of troughs, bird baths, flower pots, and decorative pieces, but unlike cement alone, it's light and quite movable; and in time, it takes on a beautiful, weathered and ancient look.


I got totally inspired, even before the workshop began, wandering through Kandy's leafy, shady, tall-grassy backyard and discovering her handmade, eclectic treasures; I loved every inch of it. There's even a hypertufa waterfall with gi-normous goldfish in the pool below.

Working with hypertufa is muddy, messy fun, and I was transported back to making mud pies with my sister and cousins on our grandmother's front porch. I did a few mosaic stepping stones last year, but Kandy takes it to a whole 'nother level, and now I've got a mosaic dulcimer and pink mosaic flamingos on my to do list. And those leaves! They were our favorites and just screaming for all manner of artistic applications and interpretations. I've begun looking around for huge leaves, like elephant ears, banana trees, rhubarb, etc.; when I find a stash of them, I'll have an afternoon of leaf casting in my own backyard.


She served us lunch of chicken salad and fresh strawberries and told us stories about her historical home and intriguing life. She has reason to believe that she's Al Capone's unacknowledged grandchild. I kid you not. Her husband, Jimmy, is an actor and set designer in the local theater and has been for many years. He showed us how to pour hypertufa flagstones in minutes that look exactly like the real thing. Hypertufa is hard (as a rock) in 24 hours but requires 28 days to cure.

You can find the Garage Sale Queen on Facebook, and she has a book that you can download. Her art is displayed around Little Rock, including pieces at the Starving Artist Cafe. She is all kinds of fun, and I can see her with her own TV show. I think most of us could teach ourselves hypertufa techniques from books and instructions on the net, but it's fun to discover the beginnings with others, and Kandy shared with us some variations that didn't quite work for her, always good to know. I went to Home Depot on Monday and loaded the back of the Kia with the makings for hypertufa, and I'll be posting my pieces here with more detailed info on how it's done. When Kandy offers an advanced mosaics class next summer, I plan to be there, rain or shine.