UTEE Heart Mosaic Tutorial

I was looking for a cool way to do lightweight mosaic tiles and so, through a bunch of creative experimentation, I invented the super easy technique you see in the scrapbook page above! Keep reading for the full tutorial. Even though it looks like glass, it’s plastic. The secret ingredient is embossing powder – a super thick embossing powder called UTEE.

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About Mosaic

Mosaic is an ancient art form that involves assembling small pieces of materials, such as stone, glass, ceramic, or other objects, to create intricate patterns, designs, or images.

Photo sources: 2200 year old mosaic, switch plate mosaic, vase mosaic, tin mosaics, abstract mosaic, bathroom mosaic

As you can see from these photos, mosaics have been used to decorate walls, floors, and ceilings of temples, homes, and public spaces. The technique relies on arranging tesserae (the individual pieces) in a deliberate, often painstaking manner to achieve stunning visual effects. Modern mosaics continue this tradition, incorporating new materials and styles to create works that range from abstract designs to detailed portraits. This versatile art form bridges functionality and beauty, blending craftsmanship with creativity to transform ordinary surfaces into vibrant expressions of culture and imagination.

If you’re interested in unconventional mosaics, you might enjoy this post I wrote about a visit to the ICA (Institute of Contemporary Art) in Boston, which includes an unusual contemporary mosaic.

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Supplies:

• UTEE clear
• To Dye For Red
• UTEE flex
• Teflon Craft Sheet
• Ranger Melting Pot
• Glossy Accents
• Pencil
• Eraser
• White Cardstock

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UTEE Heart Mosaic Instructions:

1. Pre-Heat your pot and then melt some UTEE clear in it. 
2. Once it’s melted add a few beads of flex.  You may be wondering why I’m using flex since we want it to break into the mosaic pieces?  If you don’t use flex, it shatters into shards that are too small and pointy to be useful.  A little bit of flex makes for more manageable shards in my opinion.
3. Add a few drops of To Dye For Red.  Integrate it into the pot.
4. Pour the UTEE onto your Teflon Craft Sheet, at a thin to medium thickness.  Let cool.
5. Once cool, start breaking it apart with your hands.  Place any shards you don’t like back into the melting pot.
6. Add more To Dye For Red to the re-melted shards.  This creates the color variation with the darker red you see in parts of the heart.
7. Repeat the pouring, cooling, and breaking steps.
8. Draw an outline of a heart with a pencil.  I drew mine freehand because I don’t mind it being wonky, but you can trace something if you’re more of a perfectionist.
9. Start filling in the heart with your shards.  I filled the whole heart in and when I was happy with the placement of everything, I applied Glossy Accents to the back of each shard in order to adhere it to the cardstock.
10. Erase your pencil line.
11. I found that the Glossy Accents didn’t hold the shards to the cardstock as well as I had hoped, so I ended up “grouting” the entire mosaic with glossy accents.  It’s easy to do, simply fill in every crack with Glossy Accents (it’s self-leveling and won’t drift much from where you place it) and let it dry.

When people see this layout in real life, they’re convinced that it’s glass and when they touch it, they’re shocked to feel plastic.  How cool, is that?!  With color variation and some patience, I think you could do all sorts of amazing mosaic projects! I’m excited to try!

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How the Melting Pot Works: