I know, I know… I’ve been rather slack on posting project photos. This is partly because my work on Seascape is going rather slowly, and partly because I’ve taken up work on a rather large-scale mosaic project which I don’t wish to reveal until finished.

(Oh – I’ve also taken up practicing the piano – or in my case, the electric piano-style keyboard, which was until two weeks ago the largest and most expensive dust-collector in my apartment.

However, just to remind my faithful readers (and myself!) that this is primarily a crafts-based blog, here are some photos of the recent balcony work in the House of Brouhaha.

First up, a freeform mosaic (“freeform” meaning nothing is glued down, and so this work can change at a moment’s notice) featuring rocks I collected at the seashore in Inverness, Nova Scotia

Although you probably can’t tell from the photo, this is a water bowl. (Oh, and I should note, the table it’s on was rescued from the back of the apartment building last year but I finally got around to spraypainting it on Saturday). I got the idea from a mosaic book, although that water bowl featured tiles.

Actually, the use of the base bowl (which is a terra cotta thing that is meant to go underneath large planter pots – to this day I don’t know the name) is long overdue as there is a bit of a story behind its acquisition. I had read this idea about a Moroccan style “water bowl” with tiles more than two years ago, and of course needed to find the base right away. I searched up and down the garden centres close to me in Toronto but none of them sold this size (20″) in the clay version, only in plastic.
I had just about given up when JJ and I took a trip down to Kingston to visit my mother. We went for a day journey to Gananoque, about 20 minutes from Kingston, and found a very old-school hardware shop: here’s their blurb on line:

A Tradition in Gananoque, Since 1872
We at Donevan’s Hardware pride ourselves in being a 5th generation family owned and operated business for the past 135 years.
We are an old fashioned down to earth Hardware store. Typically customers come into our store for those hard to find items that no other stores carry.

Well, I am living proof of that statement, really I am. Why? Because I went into this wonderful shop (the type of shop I adore – all sorts of stuff jammed in) and asked if they had such a thing as a 20″ terra cotta dish. Well! I got taken up to the storage attic by one of the proprietors (who was 80 if she was a day) and got a tour of the storage while she looked for this dish, which she “just knew” was there. And so it was. And it cost… gasp!… $35! I had not wanted to spend more than $20 – but just could not refuse. She even insisted on calling up her (80 year old) husband from the cash to come and bring it down for me.

So, sale by sheer embarrassment. Having said that, do check out this shop if it’s still there. You won’t regret it – but just don’t ask for anything you don’t see on the shelf.

But, as ever, I digress.  Anyway, JJ got jealous of my water bowl and rocks so I let him have some of the rocks to put into his special fountain:

Having come across some rather decrepit candles in glasses, I then decided to try a wee experiment – salvaging and chopping up the wax from the dead candles, then putting them back in the pretty glasses with another candle in the middle:

I also put some sea glass in the one at the left as a little experiment.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  So far, so guid.

Oh, and I can’t help but show off another of my Nova Scotia acquisitions: a basalt tea light holder!

Huh?!?  Well, here’s what it looks like at the top:

So, all to say, our balcony is now all ship shape and ready for the party season… day or night!

Happy Tuesday!