My third project was turning a cable spool into a mosaic garden table, I found the cable spool and some tiles on freecycle after a lot of searching!

Materials
Different coloured tiles (some from freecycle, some samples from tile shops)
White Grout
Spatula
Cloth
Sandpaper
Cable Spool
A lot of time!

Firstly I sanded down the table to create a smooth surface to work on, then I wiped it over with a damp cloth to get rid of any dust.

I broke up the tiles into random shapes of a medium size and some were smaller mosaic shapes already – squares / circles. I spread a small section with a thick amount of grout and pressed in the broken tiles, this squashed grout up the sides of the tiles, then I matched similar shapes to them like a jigsaw, pushing them until there was a few millimetres of grout between each tile. Scraping off the excess grout to reuse and to tidy up the edges.

I continued spreading sections of grout and adding tiles in a random pattern, until the table was completely covered. I left it to dry for 24hours and hey presto – a beautifully decorated garden table for next to nothing!

UPDATE;
For my friend Anna’s birthday Adam and I made her a mosaic table using a slightly smaller cable spool, we put together bigger pieces of tile, creating an orange, yellow, blue and green pattern. I’m really pleased with our second effort, after a bit of practice and a bit more design time, we produced a lovely table that Anna was really pleased with.