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| Image 1: Mosaic Butterfly Chair Center |
A US Midwestern summer includes enjoying gardens and yards, so today's post spotlights a garden chair I up-cycled with mosaics. I have my share of mosaic stepping stones, so creating the mosaic on a chair seat yielded a much more versatile and useful decorative object!
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| Image 2: Mosaic Butterfly Chair seat |
Besides being an actual chair (!), it's great have a level surface to set tools, or my camera, or beverages on when I'm outside. It's also nice to sit on when taking a break from planting and weeding. Amazingly, I have actually sat on the chair while eating outside with my 20-something children in sight of the flowers! (and weeds).
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| Image 3: Garden setting, with flowering hydrangea tree! |
The
chair is part of a vintage (and rusty) outdoor table and chair set I
purchased in Door County. The chair is actually is a folding chair, but
I don't use it that way, and I leave it out all winter. (Click here for
my winter garden photos). I up-cycled the table first. Since I am trying a variety of mosaic techniques, I am not making this set match at all. The unifying theme is picassiette mosaic.
(Mosiac work using broken china is sometimes called Pique Assiette, or picassiette.)
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| Image 4: Up-cycled vintage Mosaic Butterfly Chair |
The table and chair set I created included the mosaic table shown below, detailed in this post here.
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| Upcycled Garden Mosaic Table |
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| Mosaic Garden Table Top |
Mosaic Notes: Trying to flex my mosaics and design skills, in this chair I mixed small vintage tiles, contemporary and vintage china, and a central element from a novelty butterfly plate. I used multiple borders and triangular piecing. I loosely coordinated the butterfly's colors and added in additional colors, including cobalt and an inspiring periwinkle blue plate that I really wanted to use because the color was just so lovely. (Periwinkle is a lavender tinted blue, the photos don't necessarily capture the color). LOL, half the reason the chair exists was to use that plate!
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| Image 5: Mosaic Butterfly with Curved Border Detail |
Project Notes: Reflecting on the results of achieved when a project is completed, I try to answer these 3 questions.
1. What went well,
2. What could have gone better, and
3. What would I do differently if I could re-do it.
Applying
these questions to my chair, I saw I definitely
improved and am happy with the results. Here are my thoughts:
What went well:
I got to use the center of a lovely resale butterfly plate!
I used vintage tiles and other beautiful materials.
I used and was more adept at triangular piecing.
I used multiple border elements and lined them up better than I did in a previous project (the table from this set, shown below, for example).
I got to use an unusual color palette that makes me smile including periwinkle, cobalt and light blues inspired by the center butterfly plate.
I'm happy with the materials used - clear silicon caulk, sanded grout, grout sealer.
The project was fast, and finished!
What could have gone better:
The chair really is too rusty for my taste.
What would I do differently if I could have a do-over?
I might have removed rust and used rust preventive paint.
Answering these questions for completed projects is something I encourage people to contemplate. Skills are improved by practice and reflection!
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Image 7: Mosaic table and chair in garden
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Garden Notes: I created this raised bed garden during the pandemic, with all plants and the tree, in what was plain lawn. The small tree is a flowering Hydrangea tree and is already significantly bigger than when I planted it!
"If you have a garden and a library,
you have everything you need."
- Cicero
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Image 8: Mosaic table and chair in garden with flowering Hydrangea tree
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"Gardeners, I think,
dream bigger dreams
than emperors."
- Mary Cantwell
Click on the images to see them enlarged.
I
blog for fun and my blog is ad free. Comments encourage me, and I
sometimes need encouragement. Please leave a comment if you have time!
Anonymous comments and comments months/years later are welcome!_________________________________________________________________________________________________
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