Woman Gets Crafty With a Hammer To Create Her DIY Olive Mosaic Table

From their initial beginnings as an artform in ancient Greece to present day, mosaics have always captivated the discerning eyes of art lovers new and old. Even relatively simple and cheap mosaic art can look incredible when created with intention and care. Best of all, you don't need to be a master artisan to produce beautiful mosaic art. All you need are some good crafting sensibilities, a few affordable supplies, and... a sturdy hammer.

Australian DIYer Geneva Vanderzeil is a master at making mosaic art, but as she demonstrates here while creating a new olive-themed mosaic table, it's not too difficult for novice DIYers to try. It is amusing, though, that Geneva's creative process starts with an act of destruction. Get those hammers ready:

Why pay to go smash stuff in a rage room when you can do it at home and turn it into an arts and crafts project ? Geneva ( @genevavanderzeil on TikTok) doesn't always smash stuff up to make her mosaic tiles, but for this project, she wanted to let loose and have some destructive fun. Who wouldn't?

Related: Woman Adds Mosaic Tiles to Her Mirror and It Totally Takes It to the Next Level

First, the Materials

To create her DIY mosaic table , Geneva needed something with a raised edge that she could set her mosaic tiles into. She found what she was looking for with the GLADOM tray table from IKEA. At $19.99 USD, this table is the perfect size and shape for a mosaicing project at a decently affordable price, and you can pick it up in black, gray-beige, or white (or you can just spray paint it like Geneva did).

Once she had the table, Geneva just had to break out the craft glue, tile grout, and mosaic sealant, and she was ready to go. Oh, I almost forgot - the tiles. Sure, Geneva could have bought specially-made mosaic tiles, but she had a perfectly good hammer, and she wasn't afraid to use it!

It's Tile-Clobbering Time!

Geneva picked up a few cheap basic gloss tiles in white, green, and red to build her pimento-stuffed olive motif, put on her safety goggles, and started smashing. I worried that the hammer's impact would ruin the glossy finish, but the breaks looked pretty clean - no spiderwebbing or anything. However, she wasn't able to finesse the tile pieces down to the exact shape and size she wanted with the hammer, so she broke out her tile cutter to finish the job.

Artistic Assembly

From there, the assembly process was a no-brainer. She had already cut out some olive shapes to trace the pattern onto her table with, and once those were drawn, she got crafty with her tile pieces! She completed each section by color, using craft glue to secure them to the surface. Once everything was in place and the glue had dried, she grouted in all the cracks, sealed the top, and voila! From a dirt-cheap IKEA table and a handful of even cheaper gloss tiles, she produced a playful outdoor statement piece that looked factory-made. All this table needed to complete the vibe was a couple dirty martinis on top... and maybe a little charcuterie board too. Man, it's not often that a crafting project makes me work up an appetite!

An Approachably Easy DIY Project

I love how easy and free-spirited Geneva's process was, especially for me as a novice DIYer. All of her materials were very affordable, and this could be reproduced for even cheaper with leftover gloss tiles or a tray table bought secondhand. The only limitations here are in your imagination.

Besides, I won't lie: as someone who gets keyed up after a long, difficult day, I much prefer the idea of letting off some steam while smashing up new mosaic tiles to just buying pre-made ones outright. The next time I feel a rage room sesh coming on, I might just swing by my local tile store instead!

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