Anne-Marie Battis Mosaic Studio

People ask where I get my glass and tiles, assuming they are hard to find. I used to buy  online, mostly vitreous glass tiles and some of the more specialized types of glass.  But since I started using stained glass as my main material, I haven’t had to go online or spend much money. It turns out stained glass is very easy to get, and I have several years’ supply on hand at this point!

The local stained glass shop sells scrap glass for $5 a pound, and I have picked up quite a bit there.  I’m guessing this is standard at these shops, since they always have scrap pieces left over from their classes, too awkwardly sized for them to use, but perfect for cutting into little mosaic-sized pieces!

Then I saw an ad on Kijiji from a stained glass artist selling her scrap glass for $10/box.  I ended up with three boxes from her, and still have tons left. In addition, the seller assumed she would not be able to sell any of her clear glass scraps, but I was pretty happy to take them, since I use a lot of clear textured glass in my pieces

Finally, my sister-in-law came for a visit, and brought me another 10-15 pounds of leftover stained glass scraps. She gave up stained glass art and was happy to discover I could use it. Her current art involves burning decorative designs onto salad bowls -- very intricate and lovely work. Here’s one of my favorites: