The perfect gift for the enophile master gardener archeologist historian who has everything.

Being the non-conformist INFJ mega-Aquarian I am, I decided to bend the etsy bitchen kitchen mosaic challenge rules a tad and make this wine amphora my entry.
Nowhere in the rules did it say that we had to confine our houseware item selection to this millennium and this was surely ESSENTIAL for the well-appointed 1400BC Greek kitchen!

Can you believe that I had to leave all manner of furniture behind when I left Colorado for lack of space on the truck, not to mention over a dozen beloved house plants that had been with me for over a decade! But somehow, this long-empty 3 liter wine bottle managed to make it to North Carolina with us? (That can be rhetorical.)

When a glass water pitcher broke and I was able to extract the blue handle intact, my dead wine soldier was reincarnated into an historical artifact. An Italian, porcelain, flower cluster focal point is kept company by gorgeous bright floral china. I used several Homer Laughlin Rhythm patterns, Primrose, Chintz, Woods and Kensington (the two grape patterns up top). I added some mother of pearl beads and a vintage necklace around the mouth. Grouted in my favorite deep purple grape, of course!

I know y'all don't come here looking for Terrific Tips, but this one is free and I wish I'd known it a decade ago when I started this pique pathology of mine. When I use the purple grout, after it dries, there are milky white haze blotches in parts. It has always annoyed me. I was about to order a product from a mosaic supply site (Sulfamic Acid: A great product for removing grout haze and efflorescence (that white grainy looking stuff that sometime forms on your grout) but I somehow got google lucky and ended up on some long-dead tile tip board. Someone mentioned white vinegar for grout cleaning and VOILA! Not only did it remove the haze on the grout but it also helped with another problem I always forget that I have.

I seem compelled to use dark color grouts on pieces that I adorn with white shards replete with silverware scratches. You'll see this tomorrow when I post a teapot vase grouted in black cherry. All that dark black cherry grout gets in the surface scratches on the white shards and it looks shitty. (See Sally selling seashells by the seashore.) White vinegar on a Q-Tip to the rescue! It doesn't totally shine the white up, but good enough for me.

This piece has been waiting for grout for months. I finished it last spring, I think. I'm pretty nuts about it and would love to do more like it. I just need to get my hands on a few more Jeroboams! (Hey, that's a nice name for a cat! hmmmmm....)