How to Cut Plates for Mosaic

Start with the plate. Thin china or porcelain with a pattern across the middle gives you the most usable pieces. Karen holds up a blue and white transferware plate with a scene in the center and a leafy border on the rim. Look at it as two parts: the flat center you will keep, and the curved rim that needs extra work. Thrift stores sell plates like this for a few dollars.

Take a piece of plate that is already broken. Set the nipper jaws on the edge with about a quarter to three eighths of an inch of china between them. Do not push the jaws all the way across. Squeeze the handles firmly. The china breaks in a fairly straight line from where the jaws sit. Where you place the nippers decides where the crack runs.

A piece with the rim still on will not lie flat. Find the spot below the lip where the plate turns from curved to flat. Put the nippers on the edge right there and squeeze. The cut runs straight across and splits the curved lip from the flat part. Keep the flat half. The curved half can be cut smaller for a round pot, or saved for later.

Small pieces often keep a strip of lip along one side. That strip is hard to grip, so hold the piece close to the jaws and take small bites. Nibble the curve away a little at a time until the piece sits flat. Then keep cutting it into smaller and smaller pieces. Flat, small pieces are what work on flower pots and tabletops.

A whole plate is easier to start with a hammer. Slide it into a heavy freezer bag and lay it flat on the table. Tap the center once or twice, firmly but not hard. The bag keeps the shards together and off the floor. Hammering gives you odd, interesting shapes you could not cut on purpose, and some come out ready to use.

Pour the pieces out of the bag and sort them. Some are ready to go as they are. Others are long rim shards with a curve. Hold one of those and nip it into shorter sections, finding a spot where the piece flattens out. Shorter sections hide the curve. You can also nip away the plain white areas if you only want the pattern.

The center scene is the best part of the plate, so cut it out as one piece. Set the nippers where the rim already curves inward, not on a straight stretch, and the break tends to follow that curve. It does not always work. Karen's first squeeze misses, and the second one gives her a fan-shaped focal piece with the trees intact.

With the focal piece out, work around what is left. Take small bites from the edge, chipping away until each piece is the size you want. Mosaic artists call these bite-sized pieces. The narrow white edge strips become thin filler pieces that fit between larger patterned tiles. Nothing on the plate has to go to waste.

Before you glue anything, hold a piece against the surface. Karen holds the fan-shaped plate piece against a small flower pot. It is too wide to follow the curve. A big flat piece suits the center of a table or a large pot. For a small pot, cut it into smaller pieces and run them around the outside in a band, then set them in tile adhesive and grout.