Customer Reviews

Making Bits & Pieces Mosaics: Creative Projects for Home and Garden

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a wonderful book on creating mosaic art. It is in full color with many photographs of the artwork. The instructions are easy to follow and accompanied by step-by-step illustrations. The book starts out with a brief history & some impressive examples of mosaics throughout the world. Many great tips are then given on collecting materials including commonly found objects. Next developing a color scheme, matching shapes, & adding highlights to your artwork are discussed. Then, equipment & materials are covered and basic techniques are demonstrated in detail. Numerous projects follow including a flowerpot, mirror, birdbath, birdhouse, watering can, plant stand, garden walkway, small garden wall, & jewelry. The book even shows you how to restore china that has been chipped.

Marlene Marshall is a gifted artist and writer. From her book, one can easily learn the beginning steps on the road to making unique pieces of art. Her style is straight forward and holds the reader's hand through the process without telling them how to be creative. The photos are wonderful and give the reader many ideas. Thanks to Marlene's book, I decided to tile a exposed heating duct in my dining room and it came out fantastic! It is often the subject of many dinner conversations with friends. This is truely a great gift for any craft person or budding artist. I can't wait for her next book!

This book is for those who don't want to follow rigid patterns but want to create something a little eccentric. Good for beginners. There are lots of interesting project ideas and the instructions are easy to follow. These projects are alot more time-consuming than one would think and can be quite messy. Happy hunting for pieces.

I was looking for an instruction book on bits and pieces mosaics. Not only does the author give you this in detail and with pictures, but also tells you exactly what you need. I also very much enjoyed the history of the art that was included in the book. It is a concise and well rounded book on the subject, and I thank the author for a job very well done! I am now back online to order another copy for a friend.

Marlene has me successfully doing mosaics on everything I can put my hands on! I was a quilter for 20 years, and this has become my new addiction. Thanks a million Marlene....my kids even love the breaking plates part! It's turned into a family project...especially hunting down all those delightful treasures at tag sales, thrift shops etc. See you at Brimfield!! B. Garvin, Connecticut

Beautiful pictures of mosaic work using rock and brick. The author is truly an artist and talented in her use of design and shape. I was hoping her book would include some patterns I could follow of some of her smaller work but these were not included. Overwhelming for the novice but definately inspirational. This book is geared more toward the larger projects and not the "weekend crafter".

I love the challenge of creative household projects and bounce back and forth between several different ones, but by far, mosaic tiling is my favorite! I used this book for the ideas & know how. It has great pictures and well thought ideas I had never thought of. I tiled my porch walk way with a wonderful mosaic tile design & I receive complement after complement (even from the mailman!). Everyone wants to know who did it!

I wish I hadn't spent the money on this book. While it does give you the basics of doing mosaics, there's maybe 6 pages of it. If you've ever done any tile work, then its useless. The rest of the book is centered on doing specific projects. Frankly, the example pieces in the book were downright ugly. Most of them looked like they were just a smashed plate re-assembled. There's really no color or design patterns. The rest had doll heads all over them, which I found pretty creepy. If you're a beginner, this might give you the basics but there should be better books out there. If you're looking for inspiration, there HAVE to be better books out there than this one.

This book has a lot of finished pieces that I found to be almost ugly. The techniques as instructed are not as in depth as I have seen in other books. I recommend you purchase to accompany another mosaic book, but I would not make it my primary instructional book.

If you'd like to experiment with the hot new trend of pique assiette or shardware, this is THE book for you!