New things!

Summer Jewel Tree Hanging Plaque

I have changed the Summer Jewel Tree design into a hanging plaque, which looks great with the iridescent and translucent leaves dotted around the design.

Faceted Rainbow Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

There is also a new bird bath design, Faceted Rainbow. This was inspired by the way facets in glass or jewels create a rainbow of reflected light. So the tiles are cut into facet shaped on the base, and as straight facets on the rim. It creates a great effect, so why not let your garden birds bathe in a rainbow.

Coral Reef Mosaic Bird Bath

Coral Reef Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

Now your garden birds can take a dip on a Coral Reef. There are brightly coloured tropical fish swimming against the shimmering water made with four shades of aqua blues and see greens. A bit of fun for the garden, and great for adding a splash of colour.

Customer Commission Mosaic Bird Baths

Yorkshire Rose Mosaic Garden Bird Bath Sky Blues

Yorkshire Rose Mosaic Garden Bird Bath Team Colours

I've managed to complete a couple of customer commissions for mosaic bird baths recently. The first was a design that a couple of people had asked me to try, a Yorkshire Rose. I made the rose, but couldn't decide on a background. As soon as one of my customers saw the rose she knew exactly what background she wanted to match her favourite Yorkshire team. I also wanted to try a rose on a graduated sky blues background, so that was the second version.

Blue Sheep Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

The other customer commission for a mosaic bird bath was a lady in America who said she really liked the hedgehog designs that I do, particularly the blue one, and asked if I could try a blue sheep. So, I thought I'd try a sheep in the same layout style as the hedgehog, with the face and legs as one element and the rest of the body filling the base. A few attempts later and I got the design to where I wanted, and the customer was very happy with it too. Think I might try another version of the sheep soon.

Mediterranean Pool and Heather Tartan Mosaic Bird Baths

Mediterranean Pool Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

Two new bird baths added to my website shop and to my Etsy shop (for international buyers) both made just using straight lines. The first one, Mediterranean Pool, has a design that was inspired by pools, and the tiles and colours of the Med, with it's blues, turquoises, and sea greens.

Heather Tartan Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

The other mosaic design, Heather Tartan, has a tartan pattern and uses purples, greens, and sky and grey blues which remind me of heather moorland. 

So the bird baths use the same method of making the mosaics, but the colours and pattern give them totally different looks. Both are great for adding colour to the garden, and both can be used as bird baths by your garden birds, and also as water dishes by other wildlife, including hedgehogs. They make great gifts for wildlife and garden lovers too.

Old English Roses Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

Some design ideas come from customers asking for tweeks. This time a customer asked for the Canal Folk Roses Design (left), but with red and pink roses (middle) . I thought that created a really different feel to the design so I expanded on it and came up with the Old English Rose design (right). It's got a lovely cottage feel to it, but it's also quite modern with the blousy flowers that are quite on trend at the moment.

The Pool Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

The Pool Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

A fun new mosaic bird bath design that's called The Pool and is a mini swimming pool complete with 'paved' edge for the birds to have a splash around in.

Rainbow Hedgehog Mosaic Garden Bird Bath Water Dish

Rainbow Hedgehog Mosaic Garden Bird Bath Water Dish

A new hedgehog has joined the gang. Rainbow Hedgehog is now available along with Moonlight and Harvest. They all make great bird baths and water dishes to leave fresh water out for your garden wildlife, which if you're lucky includes your garden hedgehogs.

Pastel Anemone and Peacock Jewel Bird Baths

Pastel Anemone Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

Two new mosaic bird bath designs. Both came from making a shape from a tile while I was making other bird baths and then it sparking an idea for a new design. And I've got ideas for more designs from making these too. The first design is the Pastel Anemones. I've used this colour palette quite a lot lately because it looks great with the black grout. The flower centres are slightly glossy black so show well against the grout. Some of the flowers are iridescent to add metallic shine to your garden.

Peacock Jewel Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

The other new design is the Peacock Jewel. This bird bath has a slight feel of India about it with the colours used and the stylised peacock design. The jewel bit of the name refers to small squares of iridescent tiles which give the metallic shine to certain areas of the bird bath.

Little Lions Mosaic Garden Water Dishes

Little Lion and Little Lioness Mosaic Garden Water Dishes

These Little Lion, and Little Lioness water dishes were designed with the idea of leaving water out for outdoor cats. They can look into the dish and see themselves as a lion or lioness. The dishes are also perfect for leaving water out for birds, hedgehogs and all your other garden wildlife too.

Butterfly Love Mosaic Garden Bird Baths

Butterfly Love Mosaic Garden Bird Bath (two tone hearts with hidden butterflies)

These two versions of a new design have a hidden secret. The design name, Butterfly Love, gives a clue. One way up the design is two tone rows of hearts, but turn the bird bath 180 degrees and the hearts become single colour rows of butterflies. Not everyone can see these butterflies, so if you can it's your secret. It comes in two colour palettes at the moment, the blues and greens, and the pastels.

Butterflies and Hearts Mosaic Water Dish

Blue Butterflies or Hearts Mosaic Garden Water Dish

This was spotted by one of my eagle eyed Facebook followers when I showed a work in progress shot of this dish. I was aiming for a neat pattern of butterflies in the base of this water dish, but she thought it was showing some upside down heart shapes. It is actually a reversible design, which is great. So you can either have Blue Butterflies, or Blue Hearts as your water dish decoration.

Time To Update

January and February are my time to start getting some of the designs I've thought of in the Xmas run up created. There's no time to make anything new in those weeks before Christmas, but when I'm really busy that's when inspiration starts hitting. So I've got a scrappy bit of paper with a list of designs I want to make, and I've started working my way through them.

First up are these two updated version of designs I've made before. I wanted to try the Elements design with a black background as I've started to use black grout a bit on certain colour palettes. The idea was to have a super contrast of rainbow to make it look like sparkly layers of crystals in rock. Like diamond seems in coal.

The second updated design is the Fish Shoal. I've made this before just in blues and  greens, this time I wanted to add splashes of bright colour in, and what better to do that with than bright orange goldfish.

www.josara.co.uk

Roses Mosaic Bird Bath

Pink Roses Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

After making a hanging heart with this new design on, I thought it would work well in a bird bath too. And it did. A few people are saying this design has a Mackintosh feel about it. I think that's the black grout I've used this time because the tiles are quite pale in colour so would get a bit lost in the usual grey I use. So, after the heart and bird bath in pink roses, I think I can feel a different colour version coming next. I love the new year. I think it's when the Xmas rush of making lots of current designs is over, and I finally get a chance to think straight, then all the new ideas I had half thought out when I was in a making frenzy come flooding out. Follow me over on Facebook to see these new ideas taking shape and get notification when they are added to my website too.

Wildlife Water Dishes, Bird Baths and Plaques

25cm Owl Bird Bath and 21cm Moonlight Hedgehog Water Dish

25cm Hanging Wall Plaque & 17cm Owl Water Dish

Hedgehog Water Dishes & Plaques

A gang of hedgehogs and owls have invaded my website. There are 17cm water dishes, which are great for leaving fresh water out for your garden wildlife. Then there are 21cm water dishes, that are a tiny bit deeper so will be good as small bird baths too. Then there's the 25cm bird baths that are great for small and larger birds too. The hedgehog design comes in three colours, and all of the hedgehog and owl designs can be made into wall hanging plaques too. Something for any wildlife, nature and garden lover.

Elements Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

Elements Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

Elements Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

A new design that has evolved from a design I used on a garden heart recently. I've called it Elements because there is a touch of fire and earth, and water and ice in each band of colour. The colour stripes are a mix of plain tiles, some iridescent to add metallic shine and some translucent to add depth. The background and border I have kept as a neutral stone grey to tie in with the element theme and to show off the bands of colour even more.

Bird Bath or Wall Plaque?

Commissions 

I've had some customers mention to me that they can't have a bird bath for various reasons (no garden, cats, boisterous kids), so I have come up with a way to convert the bird bath designs into wall plaques. I make quite a lot of commissions for people that just want a change of use, or a slight change to the designs. Here is a selection. The Harvest Hedgehog Dish, made into a wall plaque, and the design reversed to create an Autumn Hedgehog Dish. The Lavender Hedgehog Dish made into a wall plaque. And two standard made to order bird bath designs with similar colours used in the design tweaked slightly to match further and given matching borders. If you'd like to have a tweak made to any design, or you'd like a wall plaque made from a bird bath design (the wall plaques are suitable for garden use too), then just contact me on jo@josara.co.uk or on my website Contact Form.

A Prickle of Hedgehogs

Hedgehog Water Dishes

A 'prickle' is actually an official word for a group of hedgehogs.

I saw a plea from the Hedgehog Preservation Society to make sure that there was fresh water out for the hedgehogs to drink in the hot weather. It inspired me to create the Hedgehog Water Dish range. These are great for small birds to bathe in, and larger birds to drink from during the day. Then in the evening and at night the hedgehogs can use them to get a drink too. Plus you get to enjoy a hedgehog in your garden in the day with the hedgehog design. Perfect. And with three colour choices to choose from, Moonlight, Lavender, and Harvest, a perfect gift for any wildlife lover too.

Butterfly Compass Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

Butterfly Compass Bird Bath 

Butterfly Compass Bird Bath

Another new bird bath design. I've had the idea to make a compass in a bird bath for a while. I'd also made a bird bath recently using the mini butterflies. It suddenly came to me that they could be fluttering in between the compass points to make up the design. So the Butterfly Compass Bird Bath took shape.

I've used some plain colour and some iridescent tiles to make the butterflies. The iridescent tiles add such interest to the mosaic with their shiny metallic colours. This bird bath is a great ornament for a garden, plus it's practical for the birds, plus it would be handy for a gardener as the compass points when set up to face their true directions could be used to help place plants where they'll like it best, with more sun, more shade etc. What could be a better gift for a wildlife loving gardener?

Moroccan Garden Mosaic Bird Bath

Moroccan Garden Mosaic Bird Bath

Inspired by the mosaic colours of a Moroccan courtyard pool, this Moroccan Garden Bird Bath uses deep blues, greens and soft aquas to create a geometric design. It would be great to add colour in the garden and would look fab with large leaved plants to create an exotic atmosphere in the smallest space.

Mint Green Gingham Vintage Mosaic Garden Bird Bath

Mint Green Gingham Vintage Mosaic Bird Bath

Something a bit different with this bird bath. I wanted a cottage, rustic, vintage, look. So I made a mint green gingham mosaic design, then I painted the rim and sides of the saucer and rubbed it back to give a distressed finish. The end design has a really nice soft vintage look to it.