Cecilia's Day!

Had a great time today joining friends and family to 

support Cecilia and her family at

Robin's BBQ in Pasadena.

Before we left we had to get a picture with
this beautiful family. Cecilia seemed to be having a fun time with all of the people who came out to support her.
There were many firefighters there and also many other
people.

We were pleasantly surprised by my cousin and her husband who took the time to support the fundraiser. They were down here all the way from Sacramento California visiting their little grandson who just had surgery yesterday.
My brother Captain Eddie (taking the picture) also came down from Cerritos to support his fellow fireman and spiritual brother and family.
We hope that this fundraiser was a successful day for the family that perhaps can relieve some of the stress off of them  so that they can use their energies for their beautiful family.
Our prayers and best wishes are with their family!

Mosaic Is Complete and Installed!!!!

What a journey!!!!
The day finally came this monday!!! We installed the mosaic at the Upland Kingdom Hall.
This could not have been accomplished without all of the volunteers that came and worked tirelessly on this project.
What a process! First we layed out the picture....
Then, we started cutting glass in various shapes and sizes....
This took many months to lay out and perfect until we were happy with the complete design.
Many friends came from long distances to have a part of the project. There were also friends that came and fed all of us volunteers.
Everyone who had a part was very important to this project, there were cutters, cleaners, artists, those who gave funds and materials, installers and photographers....It was truly a joint effort!

Yes what a journey!!!!
We cut glass, placed it, taped it, flipped it over, glued mesh on it, flipped over again, set it, transported it, installed it and grouted it!!!!!
This process started the third week in June 2014
 and
 was completed the third week of October 2014.
Not too bad for the first time ever doing this!!!!
All with a lot of prayer and with Jehovah' direction no doubt!

This is the picture that we used as our guide.
The mosaic is not exactly like this picture, it is an interpretation of this picture.
So we put our own spin on this photo. 
It has been a long exhausting journey but I am
 so proud of the beautiful result of all of our hard work.

We are also commissioned to complete another mosaic for this Kingdom Hall
Hmm....
I will keep you posted on the next adventure.....

Mom's Day Out!

About two weeks ago Liz & I spent a much needed day down in San Diego.
We began the day with touring San Diego and Liz sharing with me where she grew up.
It was so nice to just take our time and enjoy the beautiful day!
No kids, no husbands, no one that needed us!

We had a blast when we got to Seaport Village.
We had a free ride on a bicycle driven by a very funny man. He drove us to this Seafood Market at the end of the village walk and the food was so fresh and delicious!
Afterwards we walked off our lunch and did some shopping and people watching.
We stayed until the beautiful evening when we were able to experience this beautiful sunset!

Can't wait for our next adventure on the next Mom's Day Out!!!!

Taping & Flipping the Mosaic Over Day.......

This has been a very nerve racking process trying to figure out the best way to get this now completed giant mosaic on to the final resting place.

Well we came up with the idea of taping the entire piece so that it would remain intact (hopefully) and then we flip it over so that we can glue the fiberglass mesh onto the back. (Easy right?)

We are adding the fiberglass mesh to give it the extra strengh since it will be hung vertically on an exterior wall and because we have so many small pieces of glass.

After the fiberglass mesh is dried we will remove the tape on the top of the glass and clean up any excess glue on the top of the glass.

Now it will look like a giant backsplash tile! (You know the kind that you buy at your local Home Depot that is usually 12 x 12)

We will then put this giant mosaic onto the base which is plywood for stability and wonder board. This will be installed just like a tile floor is installed.

Starting our first piece of glass was really scarey! One wrong move and we could totally misplace a piece of glass which could throw off the entire process!!!!
Yikes!!!

We can't believe the first piece went on so smooth!!!
All the anxiety for nothing!!!!

After the first piece is placed then they rolled the top so that the tape would adhere to the glass pieces.

Second piece....
We overlapped the pieces carefully.

More rolling and making sure all pieces adhere to the tape.
All went well except the last taped piece of course! But we got through it!

Now we slid a large piece of board underneath it and put another on top of it and taped them together so that we could flip it.

There it goes!
It wasn't bad at all! It wasn't even that heavy with all of the help!

We got this!!!!

I bet you could have heard the loud cheer that we made when we finished this process!!!
All of us really put a lot of thought into this process so that it would go sucessfully and it paid off!
On to the next step.....
Next we will be glueing the fiberglass mesh onto the back of the mosaic that is now upside down with the tape on the bottom.
I'll keep you posted......

Almost Done!!!!!........

I can't believe that we are almost done!!!!

The last few weeks we have had so much help with cutting and grinding glass which

really helped this project move forward so quickly.

This project started around the third week in June and we are almost completed with it

within two months!!!!

Look at all of the glass pieces that were cut!

Ronda Clark came by to help us cut some pebbles for the dirt area.

My long-time buddy Cindy Smith aka (Martha Stewart) also came by to cut some glass for the bushes.

Maggie B. hates being in pictures so I had to sneak one in...
She's busy at work doing the fine detailing.

We finally came up with a color for the dirt that all of us liked!

This is ALMOST done!
We still have some tweeking to do on some area's with shading and some adjustments with one of our hills but I think we should be done this week. This is good because I understand that
the Upland Kingdom Hall is almost completed!
September 1st is the projected finish day!

Progress Is Slow But It's Progress!......

Progress is slow but we are making some progress!!!!
The plants and details behing the plants are very tedious work and require hours of time.

As you see the plants are going in slowly and we are cutting hundreds of pieces of glass everyday......

After each glass piece is placed then we look it over and make the necessary changes.
If we don't like it we re-do it over and over again.  We still are not sure what we are going to do about the dirt areas. We are not liking the pebble like glass so we will leave this for last....

This week we ran out of the silvery blue glass and had to go and buy some more so now we are resuming our work on the brush. Brother and Sister Gafare came from Upland this Friday to work on the mosaic with us and Brother Gafare tried his hand on some of the bushes.  He did a great job for a first timer! (Check out his work on the bottom right corner of the pic)

These sisters have been coming several times a week for the afternoon crew. They have been working tirelessly with Kim and I cutting glass, placing the glass, and using their creative skills!

We are hoping to have this mosaic completed in the next two to three weeks.
Then comes the next part to worry about, the installation!
Oh, yeah and then on to the next mosaic!!!!

Update on the Upland Mosaic.....

The first of the two five foot round mosaics that we are making for the Upland Kingdom Hall is starting to take shape. We started forming the tall grasses with different color green glass and these will be carefully filled in with more glass of different shades.
You can see that the hills are starting to take form also in the backround. Different color rectangle shaped glass is being cut to form the rolling hills.

Small rounded pieces of glass are being placed to form the ground and surrounding dirt areas.

The flowers have been redone at least four times until we finally came up with something that we all liked.  We are still not sure of the pebbles surrounding the flowers, these most likely will have a redo also until we perfect our look.

We finally came up with a design that we liked for the cactus. Still working out the dirt areas.

The horizon is looking great! and the hills are taking form.

It is a slow process but with much help from the many talented friends and much patience cutting all of this glass we just might have this one complete by the end of August....

These different color pieces of glass are being hand cut by the friends. They are very time consuming to cut and to make it worst we decided that they were too big so now we are cutting them in half! Double the work and we need so much more!  Help! Anyone who would like to come and cut glass!!!!
Much of this work on the mosaic is the very important task of cutting glass, which is very time consuming but VERY IMPORTANT.
Placing the glass on the design is just one aspect that goes into this mosaic and you can work on a section for hours and then decided that you don't like it and redo it at least four times before you get the right feel....

This little arm of a cactus got a different pattern than the other cactus because it was shaped different and it needed something different.

The hills are taking form...

These cactus were formed by cutting out diamond shapes of glass and insetting these small globs.....

Maggie has been working tirelessly on this section of the mosaic and it is beautiful!!!!

This project has been a lot of work but it has been so enjoyable working with such talented and willing friends.  Everyone is just happy to have a part and are willing to do any task that is asked of them.  Some come to cut glass, some come to clean up, some come to bring food, some come to add their input, some come to just check it out.  So if your in the neighborhood, stop by and check it out!!!

Upland Mosaic In Process.....

Yesterday, we were working full force and all day on a five foot round mosaic that we are making for the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses in Upland California.

This is a picture of the image that we were working on.

This Kingdom Hall use to be an old Coco's Resturant.
The large circle in this photo is where one of the two mosaics that
we are working on will be installed.

We have so many willing volunteers that are helping to work on this piece.
These friends came from Ontario, California.
They have never worked with glass before however they were quick learners!

Maggie here is a pro at creative work and has been a great help on this project.
Here she is placing the glass pieces onto the piece after another sister pre-cut them and grinded them.  Each piece has it's place.

You can see the great detail that goes into a mosaic! Here small pieces of glass carefully cut by our volunteers into various shapes like diamonds, triangles, and long wisps. Then we place them on the piece.

In the horizon, strips of beautiful glass are placed to form  the horizon bed.

Cactus  and cactus flowers are being formed. This is a work in progress because we place the pieces and then another voluteer that is an artist comes in and will come in and re-arrange the pieces to highlight the areas that need shading and highlighting so that it will come to life.
We have a great team of artists that are working to make this a beautiful piece.

More Cactus in progress.....

All of the work in being done in our one car garage.  Yesterday it had to be at least 100 degrees outside and it was warm in the garage even though we had a portable air-conditioner running and two fans, but not one person complained!
We were in our element and enjoying every bit of our day working!

Tina, who is very talented in creative arts was checking out what needed to be done next.
This is a tremendous project for all of us and we are all very greatful to be a part of this!
So I will keep you informed of our progress......
Until Next Week......