2015 Auction Project: Part 2

metal tiles for the table top

The kids made copper tiles with mandala designs on them for a table top. We used 5" x 5" aluminum tiles with a copper color on one side. You can purchase real copper or brass sheets too.  I had these tiles from another project and decided to use them.

I had the kids sketch out designs on a piece of paper until they were happy with their design. Then, I gave them a piece of foam - the kind you can cut up with scissors, it comes in sheets of 8x11 or rolls. I had a roll lying around and cut up 12 pieces that were about 6"x6", just a little larger than the metal tiles. The kids then put the copper side down on the foam and copied their designs onto the metal using a ball point pen. You can see the results in the image above - pretty neat! It is possible to then flip the metal and put more design into it for more dimension, but don't use a ball point pen on the front! Unless there is no ink in it. For our purposes, we just made designs on the back.

You can use this material to create a lot of different projects: The frame of a mirror, a framed piece of art, as in our case a table top, you could even use these individual squares to make the prayer wheel we're making next...There are a lot of possibilities with this cool material. It's not expensive and the kids were really into it!

Stay tuned!