Mosaics are easy? Tutorial

Rosie and I were trying to think up some fun project to do over the weekend. We often spend too much time playing video games or watching movies. It took us a while to come up with something, and we finally agreed on doing a mosaic.
 I figured it couldn't be that hard! Wrong!!
 I bought some awesome plates at my local thrift store and we got to hammering away.
 Smashing plates is both fun and easy. Our issue, inspiration. Everything you see online is made with perfectly cut tiles and created into amazingly complex designs. Lets face it I'm not artist!
After sitting for a few hours depressed over it all we came up with something great.
 The answer; don't expect to make something just let it become something!! :)

Tools needed

You will need some simple tools. Tiles or in our case some old plates found at good will($6). A hammer or two. Some tile nips(optional). Tile adhesive, fairly inexpensive and found at Home Depot ($10). Premixed grout also from Home Depot ($12). You will also need something to put a mosaic on. I had an old table laying around so that is what we used.

You definitely need a hunny to sand down the surface!!

 We took our plates out side and hammered the crap out of them. We used an old towel to wrap the plate in first to eliminate flying plate parts and it also made for an easy clean up. You just have to shake the towel in the trash and you're done! Since we used plates we had to sort out the broken bits. Its hard to grout around pieces that are raised, so we sorted out the flat pieces. The tile nips can be used to reshape any of the shards.
Since its blisteringly hot outside we set out a tarp in the living room and started piecing everything together. We used a pencil to shape a basic design and then we fit it all together like a puzzle. The goal, get the pieces to fit inside the lines without hanging over to leaving large gaps. 

Once we fit it all together we took off a few pieces at a time and scrapped on some tile glue. Its easy to rearrange things as you go and it isn't going to be perfect no matter how many times you re do it . The out come isn't too bad, but it also isn't the master piece I was wanting! Needless to say this project has been abandoned in the garage where it sits waiting to be completed. I say we did pretty well for our first attempt. Next time I'd chose a smaller surface since I have crafting ADD and all. :)