Broken Tile Gazing Ball
Who would have thought that an old bowling ball left from the previous homeowner would make such a nice piece of garden art. From bowling ball to broken tile gazing ball.
We bought our house back in 2005. In one of the corners of the basement was a bowling ball. My husband on many occasions threatened to donate it to someone that could use it. Me, being me; told him I’d find a use for it. Someday. Someday came. Only 11 years later.
Besides the old bowling ball, we had a slew of CD-roms.
Another option was to glue glass gems or broken mirror, tiles or plate to the ball and then grout. I thought this type would hold up the best in outdoor creations but I already had some pretty cool FREE CD-roms. So, I knew I would be gluing and grouting.
I went to my local home improvement store to gather up some materials. I purchased tile adhesive to glue the tiles to the ball, tile grout and a sponge.
Then I set out to find a stand. This proved to be the most difficult tasks of the entire project. Most local hardware stores do not carry what you need. I was able to locate stands at Stein Gardens and gifts. The cement ones were expensive and the plastic ones looked cheap and were still around the $15.00 dollar mark. I decided to keep looking around.
Purchase Crafting Supplies Here:
Reasonably Priced Gazing Ball Stands
Assortment of Glass Gems Crafts
Buy Mirror Mosaics in Bulk
Grout in Just About Every Color
I then went to town on cutting up the CD-roms into square pieces using my husband’s handheld tin snip. Need to purchase him a new pair – the process dulled them 🙁
Once I had the tile pieces I started gluing the tiles to the bowling ball. I placed the adhesive tile glue on the back of each tile separately so I could work on the project in my spare time.
After all the pieces were glued, I spread the tile grout evenly over the entire ball. I followed the directions on the back of the grout for wait times before sponging off the extra grout.
I still had to find that stand though. I stopped at a yard sale that I saw an old beat up plastic stand at. I ended up purchasing it for a quarter and took it home and washed it up.
We had a can of stone spray paint in the garage so I spray painted the entire stand to look like stone. It turned out much better than I had hoped for. Perfect in fact!
One question I get often is how did you get the ball to stay in the hole of the stand? I cut and glued a heavy metal can to the bottom when I was creating the ball. It worked perfectly.
Now, go out there and create your own broken tile gazing ball. It is relatively easy to do and all the supplies can be either purchased from home improvement stores, second-hand or maybe you are like me, you just happened to have most of the items sitting around the house.
Until next time friends. Take care.
