Making Money With Used Floor Tiles And Broken Ceramic Plates

After my mother had one of our apartments tiled, they were a few broken and cut new tiles leftover. Despite these new tiles broken and cut, they still looked at beautiful and I wondered if perhaps they can be used in arts and crafts projects.

And I was right, a quick search online in such sites as Etsy and Google Images brought up pictures of tiles being used for arts and crafts projects. If you are interested, you simply search Etsy using such keywords as: “tiles, used tiles” and “broken plates.”

I was really surprised especially when I saw broken plate pieces being sold in bulk in Etsy. This confirms my idea that in the world of arts and crafts and art itself, anything can be used as an art material.

Additionally, if you image searched in Google the search keyword “broken pieces of tiles art,” you would see a lot of interesting and beautiful artworks of broken pieces of tiles which are mainly used in mosaics.

As has been said before, a lot of materials even leftover construction materials such as broken and cut tiles and broken plates can be used in art. One of the distinct characteristics of these two materials is that they have glossy finishes.

This must be the reason why despite the fact that they are cut or broken, these two materials still look beautiful. They are like uncut precious stones who just need a little shaping and polishing and they would look beautiful and ornamental once again.

You don’t need a lot of expensive tools to cut and fashion broken tiles and plates. Al the minimum, you would only need the following:

This is the most basic manual tool for cutting and fashioning broken tiles and plates. They are not expensive and can be bought in the US Amazon Store for example for between USD 13.00 to USD 32.00, so they are definitely affordable.

Not only can they cut tiles and plates, but they can also cut glass and other materials similar to ceramic floor tiles and ceramic plates. Besides this, they can also cut other materials besides the previously mentioned ceramic products.

One thing to note is that when you use them to cut tiles and plates the cut may not necessarily be smooth. But this is the tradeoff. No other tool either manual or electric can shape a broken tile or plate the same was as this tool can.

This is the only tool that you can use to shape a broken tile or plate in a curved pattern. You can even make a circular shape out of a broken tile or plate using this tool. This is how important is this tool even though you may have electric tools to cut broken tiles or plates.

YouTube Video: How to cut tile, how to use tile nippers.

YouTube Video: How to Cut Ceramic Tile for Mosaic Making 2016

The edges of broken tiles and plates can be as sharp as broken pieces of glass. And we all know how dangerous broken pieces of glass are. They can cut your skin deep and long. That is why safety gloves and eye goggles are a necessity.

The safety gloves prevent your hands and arms from being cut. It is advisable that you get safety gloves that are a bit thick with non-stick surfaces. Miniature pieces of broken tiles and plates may get stuck to the pilling of gloves which may cause injury to your hands and skin.

Besides using gloves with non-stick surfaces, you might also extend your protection to your skin by wearing clothes that have no pilling. Even miniature pieces of broken tiles and clothes may stick to the pilling of clothes and cut your skin.

I don’t think I need to emphasize the importance of Safety Eye Goggles. They are to protect your eyes in case a miniature piece of the tile or plate get thrown in the direction of your eyes. You can’t be too careful with the safety of your eyes.

Ever since their invention, angle grinders and similar cutting tools have been used to cut floor tiles and similar materials. Angle grinders are one of the most versatile small cutting electric tool that many people have.

New and used angle grinders are also inexpensive compared to their usefulness for woodworking and construction work. The cheapest one I can find in the US Amazon Store is priced at a low USD 26.00, so they are definitely affordable.

Broken floor tiles and plates can be sold in bulk. So if you have a lot of broken tiles and plates, you should have no problem selling them in their “as is” condition. All you need is to take a picture of them and upload it to an e-commerce site such as Etsy and Amazon. I saw a lot of very colorful broken tiles being sold in Etsy and Amazon this way. I suggest however that before you sell your broken tiles and plates online, you should check what kinds of broken tiles and plates sell well online together with their prices.

This would help you get a better grasp especially of the pricing of these tiles. There is for example a big price difference between broken Mexican ceramic tiles and broken fine china tiles.

This product category has more to do with broken floor tiles rather than broken plates. If you have done any floor tiling work either as a job or as a home improvement project, then you would know that you can’t avoid but produce excess cut and broken tiles.

You may not produce a lot of these materials if it is only a home improvement project. But if you are a professional tiler, chances are you have access to a lot of these materials especially if the building owners are not particularly interested in recycling.

What some enterprising people had done is recycle broken and cut tiles by cutting them in smaller but uniform sized pieces. If for example there are surplus cut and broken tiles which were originally 60”X60” and 40”X40” pieces, they cut these tiles into much smaller tiles.

These 60”X60” and 40”X40” cut and broken tiles can be recycled to 30”X30” or even 15”X30” tiles. There is no specific size requirement when these tiles are recycled. The only rule is that several of these recycled tiles must have the same uniform size.

This is probably what broken and cut tiles are most known for when it comes to being recycled into an art piece. There are numerous YouTube videos online that show how to create mosaics from start to finish.

What you would notice in these videos is that making mosaics of cut and broken pieces of tiles and plate is easy and does not require a lot of art skills. All you need to do is to create a sort of “by the numbers” image pattern and glue the pieces of tiles and plates in them.

The most difficult, tedious and least enjoyable part here is cutting the cut and broken tiles and plates into much smaller pieces. The next part however is very enjoyable and satisfying. This is the part where you actually start placing the pieces of tiles and plates into your pattern.

I don’t know the going rates for mosaic art, but I managed to find a simple framed 8”X10” mosaic art which sells for about USD 1,000 including shipping and handling. I wish I could show the art piece in this article but copyright restrictions may apply to the image. I suggest you research Etsy using the search keywords “tile mosaic art” and other arts and crafts e-commerce sites if you want to get an idea on how much tile mosaic art is selling for these days.

YouTube Video: DIY Mosaic With Broken Dishes - Koi Pond

I think the best way to explain how cut and broken pieces of tiles and plates can be used as art is by linking to several YouTube that not only displays the art that can be done with these materials, but also how to use them:

YouTube Video: Painting Ceramic Tiles with Folk Art Enamels

YouTube Video: Art Tiles - Tutorial

YouTube Video: DIY Broken Plate Mosaics in the Picassiette Assiette Tradition

Unless you are a professional tiler or someone who have access to a great supply of cut and broken tiles and plates, chances are that you won’t be able to make a viable business of them for lack of their supply.

There are however a few places besides the landfill and dumpster diving where you can probably get a lot of cut and broken tiles and plates. In these places, there is a high possibility that you would get them still untarnished and still glossy.

These places especially apply to cut and broken floor tiles. These construction sites can be as big as building construction sites to as small as home kitchen renovations in houses. They would normally be thrown out by builders for free.

One thing to note is that individual floor tiles can be heavy even if they are already cut and broken. I find it impossible to lift a bucket full of cut and broken tiles. Think about this if ever you decide to pick these materials from construction sites.

There is a high chance that fine food establishments would have a couple of broken plates lying around in a corner. This is because fine food establishments still and will continue to use ceramic and china plates.

Accidents will happen in these fine food establishments. And with these fine food establishments using a large amount of ceramic and china plates to serve their customers, chances are that you would find a couple of broken plates at some point in time.

The same goes for tile and plate sellers. Accidents would happen in these places eventually. And with the high volume of easily breakable tiles and plates in these places, you only need to regularly ask if they have broken tiles and plates to get one.

Simply put, don’t throw away your cut and broken floor tiles and ceramic or china plates. They still have value once recycled into mainly decorative pieces. It is even better if you have an artistic skills.

You can use your artistic skills to create art from cut and broken floor tiles and sell them to arts and crafts e-commerce stores primarily like Etsy and secondarily in such e-commerce stores like Amazon and E-bay.

Selling Stone Art