Well I'm totally jealous - WHERE did you get those wonderful plates??? Your nipping skills are those of one w/years of experience. Can't wait to see what you do w/these. FABULOUS collection already.

I love the solids and the basketweaves...you are doing great. Does your DH have a spindle or belt sander? I use a small one for smoothing out the edges of the leaves. If you can't figure out what to do with these, just wait until the tess swap, then send them my way. lol

OMG! These are AMAZING!! Way to nip, girl!
Love, love, love those flowers!!

Slow, I haunted our thrifts every week for two years until it got too expensive to go that often, but now I'm happy I picked up everything I did! My DH has been encouraging me to check the garage for inspiration (rather than buy more), and I have to say it WAS fun to go through my plates this week to see what I could find. As you know FLAG suggested the box of red plates that was sitting out there. I do love them, but they are SO hard to get a piece out of that isn't crossed by other color.

Flag, I'm kinda liking the serated leaf kind of look on most of them, but I might want to have some variation in that too, so thanks for the tip! Ha!... you with the
kiln are suggesting I send YOU leaves? (grin) They ARE a consideration for the tesserae swap though. I was wondering what I had that I could send.

Thanks you two....as always...

I, too, like the little nipped edges on the leaves. FLAG - going to HobLob on Friday to look for that ceramic/porcelain paint you mentioned - just think - on those plain leaves, w/the paint you could put veins in them. Seeing these plates makes me want to make a special trip to Dallas where CURB said there were colorful plates. None to be had here.

I WONDERED if you couldn't get some paint that's meant for porcelain/ceramic. That would be so great. I wish I were going with you! When you buy it, could you let us know who makes it? I'm sure some of us would buy some on line.

I was also wondering if you ever paint the raw edges of the tesserae so white doesn't show. Or does grouting usually take care of that? I've wanted to have just black tesserae sometimes and most plates are white underneath the black.

And, Cindeloo! Thank you! I've had this huge box of 8 place settings of every imaginable sized plate and bowl in the garage for a year and have only done three projects with it. Flag noticed it in with my birdhouse photos and suggested it to me for this project. It's fun to see it become something else. It's not easy nipping though. Either there's white, or the colorful rim, or a foot in there everywhere I want to cut. The leaves are easier. Maybe that's why the project's becoming a jungle. (grin)

{{gwi:129806}}

Daisy, i love that tile. i bet your hands are hurting, you are doing a wonderful job of nipping.

can't wait to see what your jungle begins to look like

great googly moogly! wonderful nipping and LOVE THOSE PLATES!!!!

Boy, you know how to make me drool. Those are sooooo beautiful. I remember you posting them, and thinking how I wish I could find that kind of treasure here. You're gonna be a very good mosaicist!!!! Those leaves and petals are wonderful.

Mermaid, Nicethyme and Slow, Thanks so much! I'd pretty much only nipped a center out of a plate before, but I found that even that's addictive. (like all the rest of masaicing...grin) Well, actually, I HAVE trimmed some of that white off that set of plates before for houses too. The plates were a garage sale find when I first started doing the birdhouses 2 years ago. She wanted $25.00 for them, so I LEFT THEM THERE! Can you believe it? I shopped all day worrying after them and went back in the afternoon and they were still there! I got the whole lot for $10.00.

Slow, my best resource for plates is the biggest Goodwill in Sacramento. I think when you find a big enough store in an old enough town, you're going to have more luck happening into good stuff. For one, more things come in there, and second, turnover is better so you're always seeing new things when you go in. If I'd have known that I'd want to nip leaves someday, I would'a had a lot more interesting green plates. Since we live a long way out from there now, I don't get there much any more, but I'll get to go next week!

Thanks again for your fun and inspiring comments! Look for me out in the garage nipping if you come by, ok?

I remember that box,amazing plates and what you've done with them so far is really more amazing.love your style.

Wow! Nice job. Nipping those darn plates is sooooo trying but you did a wonderful job.
If you plan to paint the leaves, be sure to do it after you grout!

Annie, thanks! I'm excited to get started!

Texasfern...thank you soooooo much for the info about painting later. Do you think the paint would hold up in a birdbath? I'd sure like to do that.

I have this platter that I bought to break, but I think (since the wooden bowl is too small now) that it'd be a great birdbath with the Jungle on it. I'd like to have the red edge show, though. Is that possible? Can I put the tesserae up to that edge and have the grout fill in from the tesserae edge to the red rim?

{{!gwi}}

You nip so beautifully! That square bowl will be great for
your birdbath, it will be really unique. Anxious to see this done.

Great idea, DAISY: Birdbaths should be shallow, so this w/work beautifully. If I'm understanding you right, you'll just mosaic this platter. Sure is a shame to lose those beautiful flowers and other colors. You're such a good nipper, I'll just bet you could cut it apart and save every piece, put it back together on something else.

I'm on vacation, but got signed on briefly. So fun to see what's arrrived in the exchange! (Tho what I sent isn't there yet)

The platter is great and I too hated to lose the colors, but I needed a base for this project and it fit the bill pretty well. I wanted to save the red rim and Flag told me how to border it, so now I'm looking for some red 5/8th inch tile to clip in half. We'll see! I can hardly wait to get home next week and have time to work on this.

If you do paint the leaves, just make sure you seal the paint. That should hold up.

Daisy, use red ceramic 3/8" if you have them. If not, checl Wit's End.