Tea Cart Upcycle

When my Aunt texted me last week saying she was getting rid of her antique tea cart, I couldn't be more excited.  I had been waiting for an opportunity to try out a mosaic-like technique I saw on a coffee table a few months ago.  This turned out to be a great upcycle and an easy, FREE way to create a mosaic illusion under any glass surface.

Supplies:

Piece of furniture with glass

Paint Sample Cards

Spray Fixative

Exacto Knife

Spray Paint

Glue stick

Paper punch or scissors

This tea cart was pretty boring. All brass with 2 glass shelves.  I cleaned it off and sprayed it with Indoor/Outdoor Semi-Gloss white spray paint.

2 coats and it was good to go.

I went back inside and laid the glass shelves down on a white poster board I bought at Rite Aid for .99 cents. Then outlined the glass with a pencil.

I had this handy paper cutter that cuts perfect squares. Definitely made this project 100 times easier, I recommend picking one up in whatever shape you desire before doing this project.

The paint samples I picked up from Home Depot, they are free...so I filled up my purse. I'm pretty sure anyone watching thought I was crazy...but the end result of this project was so worth the 5 minutes of embarrassment in the paint aisle. 

Cut squares, cut squares, cut squares. 

This took the longest.

So with my hundreds of squares, I took a glue stick and glued them to my poster board within the outline that I had just traced.

Here is one of the mosaics right when I finished it. I was getting so excited at this point.

Molly played with the extra squares.

After I finished both mosaics for the top and bottom shelves, I laid my glass back down and used an exacto knife to perfectly cut the mosaic from the poster board.

I then sprayed some spray fixative lightly over the top of the mosaic, and laid the glass down on top.  This way, the poster board wouldn't buckle under the glass shelf.

How fun! And so EASY and so CHEAP (free!). How could you pass up trying this out for yourself??

No one would ever guess those squares are paint samples.

I have big plans for this tea cart, this is just a temporary spot. Think: top porch garden! I'll make sure to post pictures next week once we start fixing up our porch.

Now go steal some paint samples from Home Depot!

--Emily Jo