Artist Spotlight ~ Trish Rossiter of TR Mosaics

Trish Rossiter of TR Mosaics (now Meraki Mosaics)

Trish is a self taught, mainly glass on glass (GOG) mosaic artist of about 6 years. “ I love using tiny pieces of stained glass in my mosaics and was thrilled to try No Days Mosaic Adhesive film and loved how this piece turned out! :) Definitely using this adhesive for my next project!”

Trish says, "I used the No Days Mosaic Adhesive for the rocks,
as well as the glass and it worked perfectly!"

"It was love at first sight when I spied a mosaic window hanging

inside a (yummy :) bakery in Almonte, Ontario a few years ago.

Simple, yet beautiful, I  imagined the mosaic hanging in my garden.

Just up the street from the bakery was a neat little shop filled with

mosaics for sale. I was like a kid in candy store!  Alas, the cost of

my favorite piece was beyond my means. I was so inspired however, I

immediately decided that I would try my hand at this ancient art.

It was the perfect time to tap into my creative side. Being a sleep

deprived mom, working on a master’s thesis had left me stressed to the

max and chipping glass quickly became my escape from reality!

Fast forward several years … boy where did that time go! And what have

I actually done with my life since? Well, I've retired from my nursing

career and I have thankfully cut my stress level to a quarter of what

it was…  I am a happier and more “present” mom to our kids. Inspired

by the beauty all around me - usually my children, pets or nature - I

continue to love the challenge of capturing that beauty in my glass on

glass mosaics. I recently started a Meetup group for Mosaic-ers in my

community and am thrilled to mosaic regularly with like minded

artists! 

Tips & Tricks ~ No Days Mosaic Adhesive on a Glass Tabletop

Donna's Poolside Hibiscus Mosaic Tabletop

 Occasionally, we get asked if it's okay to use No Days Mosaic Adhesive on large glass tabletops.  I've never really been sure if it would work or not, due to the fact that you have to heat the glass to 160ºF (71ºC) to get the pieces to adhere properly. When heating large pieces of glass, there's a possibility of thermal shocking and shattering the glass, if it's not heated evenly across the entire surface of the glass.

 However, we received these amazing photos of a hibiscus mosaic tabletop completed by Donna using No Days Mosaic Adhesive film and stained glass on a tempered glass tabletop.

"I made this mosaic hibiscus table using NO Days Mosaic Adhesive Film.  I covered the entire glass table with the film, placed my glass on the top of the film and heated both the top and underside of the table with a heat gun.  It worked great!!!  If I needed to move something, I just reheated that area and moved it. The table was made with tempered glass, I think that’s why it didn’t break.  I have also turned the table completely upside down, and it all held together."

Thanks for sharing, Donna!

We love seeing pictures of pieces made using No Days adhesives. If you've got something you've made that you'd like to share, please email us at: info@streuter.com.

Q&A Monday ~ cracking the base of Glass On Glass mosaics

Subject: mosaic adhesive on Glass on Glass mosaics

 
After being being asked by a customer about the heat activated mosaic glue sheets, we tried them with "glass on glass" using the GNA restover restoration glass & glass tiles.  These were heated both by the heat gun & your "patented heater" & both resulted in moderate to poor adhesion with the back glass being cracked all 3 times.....  We've gone back to using the old standard "Weldbond".  Neither of these were more than 2 ft sq in surface area.  Is this a common thing?  I am reluctant to push this product after my bad luck, any suggestions?

 P

14" round Glass on Glass (GOG) mosaic created with stained glass on recycled window glass
with No Days Groutless Mosaic Adhesive. The edge of the glass base was wrapped with
zinc edge came and soldered together with wire hangers.

Hi, P~

 I'm sorry to hear that you're having problems with the adhesive on glass on glass (GOG) mosaics. Since it is a heat set adhesive, using the adhesive on larger sheets of glass can result in cracking with uneven heating. Glass can thermal shock and crack if different parts of the window are heated too quickly. I've attached a photo of one of the GOG mosaics that I've been working on lately. These are 14" round on plate glass (recycled window panes). To heat these, I bring the whole thing up to temperature in the kiln or oven before heating with a heat gun. This ensures that the glass is all the same temperature and evenly heated. In the oven, I'll set the temperature to 200 degrees and put the piece in while the oven is room temp. 10-15 minutes later, I can remove it to an insulated work surface (I use homosote board) and continue to heat with a heat gun to move my pieces into place and push down on them to ensure good contact with the plate glass below. (In the kiln, I set the temp a bit higher so I don't have to wait so long. The kiln shelves steal a lot of the heat away from the glass.)

I'm curious to know if the curing station that you're using is as big as the glass you're building on. If it is, you shouldn't be having problems. However, if it doesn't cover the whole piece of glass, then I could see it thermal shocking. Also, what kind of surface are you heating on?

I've linked to the following blog post in hopes of addressing your other issue of poor adhesion. If the pieces of glass that you're working with have lots of texture, then there may be few points of adhesion. The surface area of the pieces that are actually adhered may be too small. Also, if the base piece of glass doesn't reach 160ºF (70ºC), then that would result in pop-offs, as well.

Do you happen to have any pictures of the failures/cracked glass?

Does this help to answer any of your questions or make sense?
Let me know if it doesn't make sense.

Carrie Strope Sohayda

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No Days Instructor and Support Carrie Strope Sohayda

Hi, there! Carrie, here... Not only do I travel the country teaching folks how to use No Days adhesives (and other techniques), but I also answer customer support emails about using No Days. So, if you're having an issue with the adhesives, chances are good that I'll be answering your questions! Since I get so many good questions, I thought it might be a great learning opportunity for people that may be having some of the same issues but haven't thought to email us. Don't worry, I'll keep the emails anonymous! Also, don't forget that we've got a lot of really fabulous videos (I put those together, too...) on our YouTube channel. So for those of you who are visual learners (umm...we're visual artists, right?), you may want to check them out! If you've got questions, feel free to contact us at info@streuter.com.

The Low Down for Glass on Glass Mosaics with No Days

Streuter Technologies offers several different adhesive solutions for mosaic artists. Each one was developed for a specific use. So how do you know which one you should use? This post will hopefully help you to answer that question, specifically for Glass on Glass mosaics.

No Days Mosaic Adhesive film vs. No Days Groutless Mosaic Adhesive.

How do you decide which adhesive to use?

Now for the nitty-gritty...and lots of pictures for explanations:

No Days Mosaic Adhesive film

The stained glass looking window above was created using the No Days Mosaic Adhesive film. No Days Mosaic Adhesive Film is dry-to-the-touch and comes in rolls of thin, film sheets that can be cut to size. It comes in "clear," which has a yellowish tint to it.
The base of the mosaic is a clear piece of hammered stained glass. Even though one side is "flat," there is still texture to the flat side, additionally, the stained glass pieces that I cut to shape and laid down on top also have texture to them. What does this mean?

Artist Residency with Mosaic Glass Quilts

In December, artist Carrie Strope Sohayda of Calyx Glass spent one week with K-5th grade art students at Clinton Elementary School in Lincoln, Nebraska. In addition to creating fused glass snowflakes for the students to take home and enjoy, they also collaborated on a glass quilt that will hang in the school for all the students, staff and visitors to enjoy for years to come.

Pre-installation picture of the six 18" x 24" panels

  Before diving in to containers of glass, she walked the students through the design process with worksheets that helped the students figure out the quilt blocks they would use, what shapes made up the blocks, and playing with different color combinations using different color schemes, color theory, and the color wheel.

3 Patch Design Worksheet for the K-2nd Graders

4 Patch Design Worksheet for the 3rd-5th Graders

After getting the worksheets colored in, each student chose the color combination they liked best and got to carefully pick through the glass bins to find the perfect pieces for their mosaic. Each student got a 4" square of recycled window glass (their "substrate") that was prepped ahead of time with No Days Mosaic Adhesive. "It was an incredibly clean process to work with. I didn't have to deal with sticky fingers and students asking to wash their hands. I also didn't have to wait for the individual quilt blocks to dry before taking them home to assemble into panels," noted Carrie.

"It's hard to see in the photo, but I prepped the clear glass squares by
laying a square of No Days Mosaic Adhesive on it, and then placing
the squares on an electric skillet that I use for crafts."

The No Days Mosaic Adhesive is transparent so the students placed their clear glass squares upon their templates to guide them in placing the "tesserae," or pieces of colored glass. Once they were happy with how their quilt blocks looked, they brought them over to the "curing station" - an electric skillet that activated the heat set adhesive,  where Miss Carrie made any adjustments in placement that the students pointed out.

In the classroom, gluing down the pieces
with a electric skillet and No Days Mosaic Adhesive.

At the end of each class period, the finished blocks were stacked and set aside in a box. At the end of the last day when all the quilt blocks were built, Carrie took them home to mount on 18" x 24" plexiglass panels with a silicon adhesive. Each panel then sat for 48 hours (while the silicone cured) before being grouted.

After assembling all the squares and gluing them on plexiglass,
the panels were grouted.

The International Quilt Study Center is located in Lincoln, Nebraska in the same neighborhood as Clinton Elementary School and will be displaying the Mosaic Glass Quilt panels for their First Friday event in May, 2013.

 For more information, check out the Lincoln Arts Council announcement, here.