Glass Gems in Mosaics: The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

Glass gems, oh, the glass gems! What, you ask, are glass gems? They are little pieces (or some people say “blobs”) of glass that are usually flat-backed, that mosaicists (mosaic ‘arteests’) use to make mosaics (yes; some look just like marbles, but with a flat back, and yes; mosaicists DO use marbles in their pieces, but, we’ll talk about that some other time!). You can see, if you look at my most recently posted pics, I used ALL glass gems in the “Funky Flower Mirror”, many in the “LIVE!” star wall hanging, many in the serving tray called “The River”; you get the idea!
So; why do I say, “the best of times, the worst of times”…? Well, lemme tell ya!; I LOVE, love, LOVE working with the glass gems; they come out beautifully in mosaics, can be used to many different effects, come in a wide range of colors, styles, patterns, transluscency-s (not really a word, but you get the jist), are very easy to find, easy to apply, and are very economical. I am a very “circular”-oriented visual artist; I am not into sharp lines and geometric patterns; I think that is one reason that the round, oval, and squiggly shapes of glass gems attract me so. And, one of the BEST things about glass gems is that you don’t have to CUT them to create your piece!!! YEY!!! Much quicker to put things together, a much smoother process for people new to mosaics, no glass shards flying, no need to master glass cutters, nippers, and the like; cool!

Where do I get my glass gems?…A popular question for me lately! Well; lemme tell ya, the great thing about being an independent artist and businessperson and the lack of censorship on the Internet means that I get to tell you EXACTLY where I get them and EXACTLY what I paid for them and EXACTLY what I think of them, without being accountable to some company or organization or ad sponsors, or whatever!!! How cool is that?! So; just a side note; you have my promise here that I will be giving you the straight sh*t in this blog; no “glazing over” (no pun intended!), no trying to be all “p.c.”, no pandering to some product or company that I don’t truly support.

Okay; back on subject…I live in the Denver metro area and the absolute, best-est, most wonderful place I’ve found for glass gems is…”DOLLAR TREE”…you get an avg. size mesh bag of gems for them for guess how much? ONE DOLLAR!!! And, they have all kinds of colors and shapes that I haven’t seen at Michael’s or Hobby Lobby (two other chain stores here that I will be referring to often in this blog, both for the good and the bad)! I got these super-cool ones from D.T. recently while visiting the Northwest (Portland/Vancouver) that are shown in the “LIVE!” star wall hanging photo, that are the squiggly-shaped, but, instead of being sold colors like all the squigglies I’d seen before, they are clear glass w/ a STRIPE of color in them!! SO cool looking! They seem to stock them at every D.T. store I’ve been to (which is a lot!) and they just vary in colors, shapes, patterns available at the different stores. I looked up D.T. online and even found that, if you’re an active mosaicist or you’re teaching a class or something, you can order certain items (including SOME glass gems) on their site in case packs (24; for $24) and pick them up at your local store! That is pretty cool! See http://www.dollartree.com/arts-crafts/arts-crafts-supplies/Multi-Colored-Luster-Gems/209c304c304p46533/index.pro

So…you may be remembering, I also said something about, “the worst of times”…well, that’s referring to the quality of some glass gems you get out there. I have been amazed to find that some of them have an actual painted-on finish, rather than a color that goes throughout the piece. The problem with this for mosaicists is that, when you go to grout something like that, that has a painted (or, I’ve heard some people refer to it as “baked on”) finish, it scrapes right off! I have now had TWO pieces (which is WAY too many in my mind!) ruined or almost ruined by these pieces of crap! With one, I was able to find a metallic/pearlized paint that matched the gem exactly and carefully paint over them after grouting (there weren’t that many in the piece and I sealed them w/ a waterproof sealer after painting) and save the piece. With the other, it was basically a loss; I used some red ones on a very complicated base (“bases” are what mosaicists call anything they glue mosaic materials on), grouted it, the color scratched right off, then I tried to match the color w/ about 5 different colors of red paint, to no avail.

So…you say, “how do you know if you have the crappy glass gems or the good ones?!” GREAT question! That was MY thought, too! So…here’s the answer; I got all crazy and frustrated at the “failure” of those gems (took one bag back to Michael’s and made ‘em give me my money back!) and was super worried that I would put a bunch of time and effort into more pieces only to have the gems’ color “fail” again and ruin my piece. So, one recent night, I decided to conduct an experiment; I would take one of every, single glass gem I owned and do a “grouting” test on it, and see which ones ‘survived’ and which ones didn’t!

As you can see from the photo in the post above this, it is a “before” picture of all my different glass gems, with grout blobbed on them. I waited for the grout to dry, then rubbed & rubbed each one to see if the color would come off (NO; it WASN’T fun AT ALL, but I was determined to get my answer and make sure I had good materials). The next picture is of all the gems that “survived” the grouting process intact. (BTW; includes all those purchased at a Dollar Tree!) Finally, the last photo is of those that FAILED miserably, of which you can see most are red! Now, I don’t know what it is that makes the red gems seem to “fail” more than the other colors (maybe someone who knows will post…?), but, they sure do seem to be the ones to be wary of. As you can see from the 2nd photo, there were some red that made it through well, just not the majority.

Another thing I tried, (of course, AFTER I went through the hell of grouting every one!) was taking my sanding block to each one to see if the color would come off. That method proved to be a much easier, more efficient, less timely way of finding out which ones were bad; the color either scraped off, or it didn’t. In my extensive “research”, I didn’t seem to notice many commonalities in why the red ones “failed” or not; ie; did the clearer-looking red tend to scratch off more often than the opaque ones. Transparency level didn’t seem to matter. So…in conclusion, I guess I would say, that I will be very careful when buying glass gems from now on, ESPECIALLY the red ones, and I may just be so crazy so as to have a sanding block with me that I try to get to one inside its mesh bag before I purchase a bad batch and take them home and then have to go return them (because that’s just the way I am!) and explain why they don’t “work” for me while the salesperson looks at me like I’m a lunatic.