How to Mosaic a Garden Pot

I love a FREE materials project.  Or just one that hardly costs anything.

Upcycling Fun: A Free-Materials Mosaic Planter

I absolutely love a free or almost-free materials project! There’s something so satisfying about creating beauty from what others might call “junk.” For this project, here’s what I used:

Ingredients:

1. An old cement planter, generously given to me by my mom.

2. Key coat/bonding liquid to prep the surface of the pot.

3. Cement-based adhesive for sticking tiles and plate pieces.

4. Some old plates—also donated by my incredibly talented mom. These 15-year-old beauties were slightly crazed and chipped from years of use (dishwashers aren’t kind to earthenware!).

5. Used white glass tiles, kindly donated by my friend Sandy.

6. A few mosaic inserts I had lying around.

7. Some old tiles salvaged from a 12-year-old mosaic project on wood (a cautionary tale—mosaics on wood rarely last, so don’t make that mistake!).

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Method

I started by carefully breaking the plates into quarters using a glass mosaic cutter, then into smaller pieces. Keep the puzzle together as much as possible—you don’t want to mix up the pieces!

At first, I tried smearing adhesive directly onto the pot and then sticking the pieces on. It was messy. For the next batch, I applied adhesive to the back of each tile or plate fragment—much tidier and far easier to control.

The pot sat on a large turntable (lazy Susan), which makes mosaicing large objects so much easier. I highly recommend one—it’s essential for working comfortably on all sides. Covering the entire pot took a full day, working until the sun set and the mosquitoes came out to remind me of my outdoor status.

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Grouting

Thanks to the turntable, grouting was far less of a back-breaking chore. There was even a little helper: a black-and-yellow wasp had made a nest underneath. He buzzed in and out while I worked, and we carefully respected each other’s space.

I added a touch of bonding liquid to the grout water for extra adhesion and got busy smearing it into all the gaps. Grouting is definitely messy work, but an important tip is to turn the pot upside down before finishing to fill in the gaps under the bottom edge tiles. I also cushioned the pot with an old dog blanket on the turntable to protect the edges—especially the delicate plate fragments.

The result? A quirky, upcycled mosaic planter full of charm, color, and memories.

 

A mosaic is only as strong as its weakest piece.

When the grout was dry, I used my Dremel tool to grind down the sharp edges on the plate. The plate has thicker parts and a curved edge, so it was impossible to get it totally flat. But I just made it work, knowing the grout and my Dremel tool would sort out the irregular and sharp bits.