Chicago Mosaic School

​DIY crafting is not just something I enjoy at home. I love getting together with friends and family for our own crafting life-capades. I've known my best friend, Jackie, and her sister Jessica since high school when we were all in flags together. They've been up for some crazy crafting in the past when we all purchased groupons for a stained glass class.

This time around we all purchased Groupons for the Chicago Mosaic School. One thing we noticed is we seem to gravitate towards hardcore crafting when we purchase them haha. Located in the northern neighborhood of Ravenswood just a quick walk from the Irving Park brown Line. They developed a special beginners class just for the Groupon, which was awesome and really took the pressure off! If you're looking for more intense and long term classes they offer all sorts of different classes to fit you and your ability level.

We started off the class with the explanation of our tools and the supplies that were available to us. Surprisingly a number of the tools were ones we had used at our stained glass class, so we were flying pretty high with our previous knowledge.

Then our instructor walked us through using the pattern pages to layout our glass pieces. Jessica and Jackie opted for a sunrise/sunset while I went for an abstract pattern. I almost went with the fish one below but thought it would be more of a challenge to stick with the abstract.

 Next up was the most difficult part ... picking your color palate! There were bins and bins of small glass pieces. Can you guess which colors I went with?

What can I say I'm nothing is not predictable about certain things!

Laying out the glass pieces to make your pattern is definitely an art form. It took us all a little while but we definitely got the hang of it.

Then you adhere everything to the tile! I somehow ended up with less tiles then I needed so I had to go back and grab more. 

Our instructor helped my out a little bit near the end to make the tiles flow more. Unlike our stained glass life-capade this time around things got a little physical. I got a glass piece to the finger and Jackie leaned on a glass piece. Yes the little red splotch on the table. These war wounds were definitely well earned though!

Taking the class at the Chicago Mosaic School was fantastic. They were really helpful and made making our projects very easy for us. As usual we had a fantastic time crafting together!