Bumping up photos of mosaic stairs

Completed August 2009. My largest mosaic project so far:

©2009, Silva Hayes, River through the woods

These stair risers are mosaiced onto Plexiglass rectangles with a hole drilled in each end of each one. The risers were installed after all the work was completed. The mosaic is a mixture of stained glass, vintage jewelry, broken plates, and various bits. Little children love to slowly climb them and point out snails, fish, butterflies, dragonflies, and turtles that live near the water.

Stair risers (by request) completed in 2009

I will give a talk and demo about mosaic art to some fourth graders on March 25 at Bee Cave Elementary and I will take these photos with me. These stair risers are a real attention getter; various delivery people and workers, neighbors, people selling candy bars - - they are all so interested and complimentary. Thought I would post these pics again (and hopefully I will do something productive soon so I can post some new pics)!

The top eleven:


The bottom five:

The last two stair risers!

Look how close I am. The top photo shows the left end of both. The next photo shows the middle of both - the river disappearing into the distance. I am anxious to complete this project so I can move on to another. A bird bath is next! Be sure to double click on the photos to see closeups.

Mosaic stairs

This is the largest project I have tackled to date. I am going to mosaic the stair risers. I will use stained glass, broken plates, and a few pieces of jewelry and glass globs. The colors will be blue, purple, green, brown, white, cream, and a few bright accent colors. The theme will be nature, with a river meandering into the distance. There are 16 risers and they are not exactly the same size. Some are 7" in height, some are 6 3/4" and some are 6 1/4". Here's my plan: I had Lowe's cut 1/4" Plexiglass in the size and shape of each riser, and I will mosaic sitting comfortably at the kitchen table. I will drill a hole on each end of the rectangle and then install with screws, which I will cover with a bead or marble. I will grout and seal before I install. Will this work? What can go wrong? Well, I foresee that the grout might develop hairline cracks; even though the 1/4" Plexiglass is hefty, it still has a tiny bit of flex and with grout, we don't want any flex. If it does have some cracks, I can repair them after installation; it will still be much easier than grouting in situ! I will post photos as I progress.