About Me and About BC

Yes I am a real person!

I am thrilled that everyone who buys my  heirloom micro mosaics know they are getting an authentic signature piece created using techniques that have been around since the Byzantine Era.

I have been fascinated with mosaics since I was a young girl but had no idea how I would go about creating my own.

Then one day I visited Fishbourne Roman Palace in West Sussex and looked around to see if I could find a little mosaicing kit to buy in the gift shop.

I was sad to find that they did not sell them there, but when I asked a member of staff, she recommended that I have a look on Amazon for mosaics supplies. Looking back it is kind of strange that I never thought to look on there in the first place, because I use Amazon for a great deal of my crafting supplies. I was chuffed to find that you could buy everything on there, from substrate (things to stick tiles to) to tiles, glue to grout and all the tools and finishing products that I use all the time now.

I started off making coasters out of MDF with a combination of 1 cm glass and stone tiles, but I quickly became frustrated with this type of mosaicing.

I wanted to make detailed pieces that captured people’s hearts and minds, that would be loved and cherished for generations to come. Heirloom mosaics with style and passion and maybe a bit of humor as well. Pieces that would captivate and delight so much, that every time their owner looked at them they would feel a real sense of happiness.

It turns out, the road started out to be more difficult than I imagined.

For a start, I wanted to make detailed art work with them and to do that with 1 cm tiles I would have had to have done it on the side of my house or a least a substrate that large!  Secondly, I wanted to make pieces that everyone could own, not just huge pieces of furniture, picture frames or garden features. Small pieces that could hang on a wall, or in the window, or sit on a shelf or a bedside table. I didn’t want my clients to have to pay out thousands of pounds to own my work, like some of the other mosaic artists I had been researching.

At the time I was a jeweler, selling handmade jewellery pieces on Etsy and I specialized in complicated beaded pieces, so I had thousands of glass seed and bugle beads in stock, and these gave me an idea that led to a  ton of inspiration as to how I could create heirloom mosaics that would fit into this very detailed specific criteria.

I don't know if you have heard of Baker Ross a UK online crafting store, that supplies crafting supplies and stationary to schools as well as individual clients?  I have loved their products for years so I had a look through their latest catalogue and saw that they sold blank wooden tealight holders, some people colour on them or decoupage or stick sequins on them- you know the kind of thing. I ordered a pack of heart shaped ones with my next (very large order( of crafting supplies for the kids, {love that feeling when the new Baker Ross box arrives, it is like Christmas for crafters!} and waited patiently (okay that bit may not be entirely true...) for my delivery.

My very first  heart shaped tea light holder I created in a kind of paisley pattern and while I totally loved it (hearted it you could say... *cough* sorry) it wasn't of a standard to show to anyone other than the family and friends I could trust to laugh with me about it and not at me. Then I had a go at trying some cupcake shaped ones. I got the extremely stupid idea to grout one of them, even I was laughing at me about that disaster!

#ByzantineBoy, my 11 year old assistant, gets really frustrated when his work doesn't come out perfect first time, or at least he did until I gave him one of my first attempts at a cupcake shaped tea light holder. He isn't quiet so stressed now that he knows that I was a bit useless when I first started out!

I ordered more blanks from Baker Ross, key rings, picture frames, little cardboard trinket box and also realised that I could also pick up wider selection of wooden and cardboard blanks at craft shops like Hobbycraft, The Works and The Range. I am not sure what the major crafting supply stores are called over the pond, but have heard Michael's mentioned a time or two? 

Don't worry though, because I will be supplying a selection of wooden blanks on my website and I will be shipping internationally. Soon I will be able to say I am supplying these things, I just bought the domain for the website!

Then began my even more crazy than usual period, when I was buying every wooden blank, I could get my hands on, enraptured by the endless possibilities. Needless to say I  have a large supply of stiff cardboard and wooden blanks in my work area these days (also the crazy period may have not ended yet, picked up this huge wooden wreath and a blank advent calendar from The Works a couple of weeks ago and most of my Christmas pressies this year were more blanks!) 

It took a while to get to where I am  now, I had so much to learn and as this is a new craft, or rather an extremely old craft being given a new spin, I had to work it all out myself. I experiments with different types of glue, bigger and smaller beads and tried edging the pieces with both seed beads and bugle beads before I settled with the bugle beads for the larger pieces and larger seed beads for the smaller ones. I started colouring the blanks i with felt tip pen, before I beaded them, so that I could then place clear beads over the top that only hinted at the colour beneath. I learned how to stick bugle beads onto the sides of the mosaics, (as mentioned early but it was a tricky, sticky thing to do to start off with) to make them look properly finished and I kept buying smaller and smaller blanks to work on. I discovered that when I was mosaicing, I was able to find immense peace and level of mindfulness that I had previously never experience and still zone out and lose hours whilst mosaicing.

It amazed me when I started and I am still a little surprised, when people adore the mosaics I create, but that level of love and support has encouraged me to throw my whole business behind micro mosaicing as Byzantine Crafts, to provide not only unique, heirloom gifts for people (or you know, for yourself, you are allowed a treat!) but also to teach other people how to benefit and enjoy this unusual craft. No matter how hard I search online or off, I have not found anyone else who does mosaicing the way that I do, so I would love to share this with other people so that they get the same enjoyment I do from it.

I am sincerely grateful that you all continue to love my work and that demand for my finished pieces is increasing on a daily basis.

Byzantine Crafts – Increasing world happiness, one bead at a time.

Nici xxx