Orange Peel Mosaics

My lovely friend, Freddie, suggested putting citrus fruit peel on top of a radiator to release the zingy smell and the end product, dried peel, gave me the idea for this children’s mosaic method. Smells great while  you are making them too!

You will need :

• Dried citrus peel. We used oranges, clementines, satsumas and the lovely dark orange skin of our favourite Sicilian blood oranges from Abel & Cole (I had a craving for these the other day and ordered a whole bag for myself!). Lemons would be lovely too and maybe limes?
• Thick black card, or ordinary cardboard painted black to provide a dramatic ‘grout’ effect.
• White craft glue and spreaders

After you have thoroughly dried your peel, break it up into smallish pieces.

Cut out the shape of the mosaic you want to make (alternatively you can do a picture). We chose a sunshine and a bird to add to our spring corner.

Spread the glue fairly thickly before adding your orange peel ‘mosaic tiles’.

Cover your shape with the peel, leaving a small gap between each ’tile’. The pieces can be easily shaped by snapping the edges (if only it were so easy with tile mosaics!).

Leave to dry – the glue will go clear. (If the card you have used is thin, it might curl a bit. If this happens, put it under a heavy book to flatten it).

If you are doing a hanging mosaic, you need to mosaic the other side and leave to dry.

Make a small hole for hanging with a skewer (you can do this before you ’tile’ or after as the peel is easily pierced) and attach some hanging thread.

For the bird, we added googly eyes (a big favourite around here!), some tail feathers and pipe cleaner feet.

Our spring corner is evolving – the hyacinth is in bloom, the sunflower seeds have sprouted and we found a salt dough bird and nest which we made last year that we have added. Meanwhile, outside it is freezing and wet. Ho hum!