Mini Mosaics

Mini Mosaic Frame

At the arts and crafts show this past weekend, I realized that there are a lot of people who want to buy a piece of artwork, but just couldn't afford to plunk down the number of dollars that I have to charge for my mosaic art pieces.  I was very happy to sell two pieces, but there were a lot of folks who would have purchased a more affordable piece.  The experience got me to wondering if I can make some nice but inexpensive pieces.  Something like a stocking stuffer.

My normal pieces are either 1' x 1' or 2' x 1'.  Not counting drying time for glue, stain and grout drying, it takes me about 21 hours to make my normal size pieces.

So the challenge: Find a way to make the frames quickly and cheaply, but still nice enough that folks will want to buy them.  I came up with a design for my 13" x 7.5" frames.  Inexpensive furring strips cut to length with a 45 degree angle and glued together. This frame is then mounted on a small piece of plywood. The frame is then sanded and stained.  I am very happy with the results.  I have to give a special shout out to my friend Jim Nelson who is an awesome wood worker. He taught me how to get a very tight 45 degree angles on these small pieces of wood.

My goal is to get these mini mosaics down to about 3 hours of total construction time.  I'll let you know how I am doing.