How to make decorative wall tiles with your own hands

Kitchen decoration begins with the manufacture of an apron from wall tiles. A special tile decor gives it a beautiful appearance. How to independently make such elements with a unique pattern in accordance with individual design requirements is described in this article..

In building materials stores, you can find a huge number of all kinds of wall tiles. Various color and texture solutions will provide an original appearance of the apron in the kitchen or bathroom. However, the decor tiles give it a real uniqueness. Combining it with a single-color base tile, you can highlight certain areas, create a beautiful mosaic pattern and implement a huge number of other design ideas. All this is possible, but there are two problems that can hinder the creative flight of imagination: the high price for decorative tiles – the price for a couple of tiles is comparable to the price for one square meter of the main one, and there is not a large selection of options. If the described problems are exactly your case, then the way out for you may be the independent production of unique decorative tiles..

Tools and materials

To make tiles, you need the following tools:

1. Narrow metal spatula. Its width should be less than the dimensions of the tiles being produced..
2. Wide metal spatula. Accordingly, its width should be 1–2 cm larger than the dimensions of the tiles..
3. A stick with a rounded end. A stick for sushi is well suited, it is initially ideal in shape, and the material from which it is made, as a rule, is bamboo, very strong and durable.
4. Sandpaper. The grain should not be large. When sanding on a putty, the paper should not leave any grooves.
5. Narrow brush.

Basically, the tiles will be made on site from putty and decorated with any suitable decor. Accordingly, from the material it will be necessary:

1. Any base putty. The main thing is that it can be applied with a layer of about 5 mm, not crack when drying and not shrink.
2. Finishing putty. This will be the face of the tile, so it is desirable that after drying the surface is sufficiently strong..
3. Any decorative elements: beads, mother-of-pearl inserts, rhinestones, beautiful stones, etc..
4. Deep penetration primer. It will further harden the surface and prepare it for painting..
5. Acrylic paints of the desired colors.
6. Varnish on a stone. Lacquer “Tsapon” will do. It is needed if the surface needs to be washed.

Making decorative tiles

Before starting work, you need to draw the desired tile pattern, you can directly on the wall. So you will decide where the main tile will be, and where the decorative.

Then we act according to the following algorithm:

1. We glue the main tiles in the right places.

2. We take a narrow spatula and apply the base putty to the places where the decorative tiles will be. The layer should be 2-3 mm less than the thickness of the glued base tile. To make it easier to work, you can upgrade the spatula. To do this, a wooden plank is attached to it, 1–2 cm longer than the width of the grooves for the tile being produced, parallel to its front edge so that the spatula itself protrudes 2–3 mm. Accordingly, the strip will protrude along the side edges of the trowel. All this will allow you to lay out a uniform layer of starting putty, deepened relative to the rest of the tile by the required 2-3 mm.

3. We fill in all the places of the future tile.

4. After the starting layer has dried, apply the finishing layer. With a wide spatula, fill the recesses with a putty flush with the main tile.

5. When the finishing putty dries up a little, we begin to make decorative jointing on the surface of the tiles. We do it with a stick. Any drawing, as far as imagination suffices.

6. Where necessary we make recesses for decorative elements.

7. The edges of the jointing can be softened. To do this, while the putty is not dry, you need to walk on them with a wet brush.

8. After the putty has completely dried, we rub the surfaces with sandpaper.

9. With a dry brush, remove the dust that remains in the seams after grinding.

10. We treat surfaces with a primer.

11. We glue the edges of the base tile around the perimeter of the work with paper tape.

12. We take paints of the desired colors and paint over decorative tiles.

13. Remove the paper tape. Main tile surface remains clean.

14. We glue decorative elements, for example, beaded squares. If there are none, then you can do without them. You can simply decorate with different colors, the result will be very beautiful in this case too..

15. Decor can be glued on transparent silicone or hot melt glue.

16. We finish the work by covering the surface of the manufactured tile with a protective varnish..

17. As a result, you will get an original, and most importantly, decorative tiles suitable for your design..

In this way, you can create decorative elements of any complexity, even with fragments of stucco molding. All this will allow, among other things, also to save a significant amount of money that you would have spent on buying decor, and money is never superfluous during repairs..