Showroom By Appointment Only

When we set our new showroom hours 2 weeks ago, we said it was experimental. We have now decided to make our showroom by appointment only. There are many reasons behind this but we feel this will be best for our business relationships across the Tulsa area.

Our office hours will be 9 to 5 CST. You can reach us by phone during this time.

If you want to go shop around and see some great mosaic supplies in Tulsa, we recommend Tulsa Stained Glass at 41st and Memorial. They have great hours and are even open on Saturdays. They also carry most of our products.

If you are not in Tulsa, we have other distributors across the nation. Email us to find out where. And, of course, you can also buy from us online.

I hope this doesn't inconvenience anyone too much. Feel free to give us some feedback on this.

Mosaic with Seed Beads

Using only glass tile can get difficult. What if you want vibrant hot pink flowers or a lime green lizard? You will have trouble finding glass tile in these wild colors. However you can usually find them in glass beads. Beads come in a large variety of colors and sizes. The larger the bead the harder it will be for you to make your image "appear". So you need to use the smaller beads for a better effect. Seed beads can give you that look without breaking it up.

The thought of placing seed beads in your mosaic may make you cringe. Try gluing in all of those tiny little pieces one at a time...DON'T. Most artists will put a large glob of glue and press the beads into the glue. No way should you ever try doing them one at a time. They are just too small.

One of my clients, Sherry Elmore, brought in a piece yesterday that I fell in love with. She loves the glass tiles, especially the Art Tile Minis. However she wanted a gold for the focal point of this piece. The Seville Gold wasn't what she was looking for and she didn't want to do jewelry. So she came up with seed beads.

Now you can see by the finished piece that she had a definate design to follow. We spent some time figuring out the best way to keep the pattern and grout before laying the beads. You do not want to try to grout and clean seed beads! Sherry bought some thin craft foam from Hobby Lobby and cut it to make the ribbon design. She glued this onto her Wedi board and then laid the black background tiles cutting them to go around the foam. She then grouted the entire thing. After cleaning out the foam areas she filled the void with Weldbond then smashed in the seed beads.

After finishing the entire piece she sprayed it with an adhesive spray and framed it. This was a wonderful gift for her parent's anniversary. Great job Sherry!

New Showroom Hours

The new school year has began in Oklahoma. With this comes lots of schools wanting mosaic education. So we have decided to close our showroom one day a week to work with the local schools. Our warehouse and shipping department will still be running on schedule.

The magic day is Wednesday. This seems to fit the needs of our schools the best. Since we won't be in the schools every week, we will be available on Wednesdays by appointment. Just give us a call and we will schedule you to come in.

Our new hours will begin September 1, 2008. This all on a trial basis and will let you know if we decide to make any changes.

Wheeled Cutter Coupon

Wheeled cutters are the only tool that we recommend for use with our glass tile. They cut the glass rather than crush it and are vital when doing any installation or glass tile project.

It does take some practice to get a really good cut and often times you won't get it perfect. Glass just has a mind of its own. Here is a link to a walk through of how to cut the tiles. You can also read an article that we wrote about how to cut efficiently.

Since these are so important, we are offering a one time, one use coupon that will give you 50% off one pair of cutters. The code is blogger08022008.

Shipment Has Arrived!

Our shipment has arrived in our warehouse. This means that we are back in stock on many items such as Antiquity, Ebony Minis, Clover Minis, and the 3/8" tile grids.

We also received many new Brushstrokes colors and one new AfterGlow color. We are working on pictures of these and will have them posted tomorrow.

I am sorry to say that our Tomato Minis didn't come in. Instead we received Sunset Minis. We are working to get a shipment of red mini tiles in as quickly as we can.

Vitreous Glass Tile

There has been an ongoing debate about vitreous tile. Some people are adamant that Italian brands are the only vitreous to use while others love the Asian brands. So what is the difference? Allow me to explain from my point of view.

Let me start by saying that I have used every brand of vitreous that I know of. This includes the Italian and the Asian. I love some but hate others.

A lot of the Asian tiles come from the same factory but US companies brand them differently. All Italian tile is now made in China and India. So basically, it is all Asian tile. What matters is the process.

The main characteristic of vitreous is the speckling of the glass. It is no secret that the fewer the speckles the better quality the tile. This is also a common sense deal. Glass has fracture points and tends to break along those fracture lines. This is why cutting glass tile can take practice, you have to learn how to manipulate the fracture points. So take those natural fracture lines and add in this speckling and now you have even more places that the glass wants to break. So few specks better cutting. Of course if you are using them whole then you don't have to worry about anything but the color.

The speckling is the quartz that didn't get melted during fabrication. "Italian" tile is created using higher temperatures and heating the glass mixture longer so that the quartz can dissolve. There are many of the "Asian" brands that are just like the "Italian" brands when it comes to speckling though. I will admit there are a couple of lines of vitreous out there that completely crumble with even the thought of cutting them. You will learn on your own which ones I am talking about.

Also remember that occasionally a dyelot will come in that is not very good. Every tile seems to break too easily or crumble when you cut it. This happens with all brands. Just let the seller know so they can contact their factory. Glass is unpredictable sometimes. One tile may cut fine while the next 5 may break wrong.

So now that we know about the speckling let's talk price. The "Italian" tile is about double the price of the "Asian" tile. This is because they do heat the glass longer and this will cost more in manufacturing costs but you are also paying for the brand name. Keep in mind that the higher the price of the glass tile doesn't mean that it is better quality. I have many designers that are amazed that some of my glass is identical to the popular Italian tile but at half the price. Also be aware that the lower the price doesn't necessarily mean bad tile. Like many other companies, we keep our prices low because we import directly.

I heard someone say recently during a vitreous glass debate that you really shouldn't worry about where the tile is made but rather find a line that you really like and can afford. Who cares where the factory is, as long as it has the colors you want at a good price.

Now for my shameless advertisement:

I love the Art Tile Collection (MatrixColor) because it is a reasonable price and cuts very well. I have only had one complaint since I started carrying this line of tile. Everyone I work with loves the look of it and agrees that it cuts well. Of course this is the line that I sell so obviously I love it!

Shipment Status

I know many of you are anxiously awaiting our new shipment. Unfortunately it has been delayed until August 4. From what I have been told, US Customs decided to hold on to our container for a week before releasing it. I will keep everyone posted as to when it finally arrives.

On this shipment will be a huge amount of Art Tile Minis. Clover Minis, Tomato Minis, and Ebony Minis will all be back in stock. The 3/8" tile grids will also be ready to ship.

In the Brushstrokes, we will have Antiquity back along with 6 new colors. The face of the Brushstrokes is changing somewhat and I will get the new pictures posted soon.

For the AfterGlow, we couldn't get the Silver Sands back but instead have the Stainless Steel on this shipment. It is still shimmery but it looks exactly like your stainless appliances. This should be a popular color!

If you want to reserve any of the new colors coming in, call us or email us. We will put you on our waiting list.