Have Small Tiles Without Buying Tiles ...

Estelle
by Estelle
4 Materials
$10
4 Days
Easy
Create your own small tiles in the colour and pattern of your choice.
A long time ago when we built the house we had 2 and a half inch tiles scattered at random in the concrete floor. It was to take the boredom of one plain painted floor away and to create a few interesting spots here and there.


After we moved back to our house after being away for 8 years, we had to take out the tiles as they were scratched and did not look good at all.


The process of breaking them out of the concrete made it almost impossible to put new store bought tiles in there, so I had to make another plan. AND I wanted to try and make my own little tiles without using ceramic or concrete. There just had to be another way...
You get a wonderful product from DALA that you can use for almost anything. It is mainly used for texture in acrylic paintings, but it works wonderful for decoupage, sealing, etc. I'm sure there might be other products that work in the same way. I wanted to try Unicorn Spit, but it is not easily available here in South Africa.


I mixed the colour acrylic paint I wanted into DALA's GEL MEDIUM.
I stuck some masking tape around the sides of the whole...not to mess any of the blue gel medium on the rest of the floor.
The whole is then filled up and made as smooth as possible. Then you leave it to dry. Our climate is very humid so it takes about two days to dry out completely.


After it has dried you can do some more artwork on the tile with paint, but I've decided to leave it plain blue.


As it is an acrylic product, it is not hard wearing for the floor, so we sealed it with a good marine varnish.



This is what it looks like from a distance. As you can see the one on the far right still has to be done. This was really a cheap and easy ...and I won't forget to say - a FUN way of creating my own little tiles for the floor.
Suggested materials:
  • Dala's Acrylic Gel Medium   (Art shop)
  • Acrylic paint in colour/s of choice   (art shop)
  • Masking tape   (hardware store)
See all materials
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
Comments
Join the conversation
3 of 7 comments
  • Denada Denada on Jul 13, 2017

    That's a really good idea! So, basically you were restoring the tiles that were already there! I was almost under the impression that you were ACTUALLY creating FROM SCRATCH your own tiles like from Sculpy etc, (which, by the way is wonderful product using only a regular oven for hardening), and then you can paint them any color and style you want!

    • Estelle Estelle on Jul 14, 2017
      Hi Denada....no, I was not restoring tiles that were there. I took out the old tiles and created new ones from scratch in it's place. Only the holes were there where the old tiles came out.
  • Kay Kay on May 09, 2018

    I love the. Color...

Next