What you need

• Protective goggles
• Gloves
• 3 or 4 medium-sized pieces of old china or ceramics (plates, platters, pitchers, or flower pots)
• An old towel
• Hammer
• Tile cutter (optional)
• Cookie sheet with a ¼ - to ½ - inch rim
• Hot-glue gun
• Premixed tile grout
• 2- to 3-inch putty knife (optional)
• A few damp rags
• Steel wool

What you do with this stuff

1. Put on the goggles and gloves and smash the china: Place the china or ceramic piece on your old towel, fold it up, and use the hammer to safely break the china into fragments. Weed out the curved pieces and save the flatter ones. Hint: You can use a tile cutter to break the china into small pieces.
2. Arrange the pieces in any desired pattern on the cookie tray, colored side up (and sharp side down if there is an edge). Swirls and circles and any kind of geometric pattern are nice – get creative.
3. Stick the pieces to the cookie tray with the hot-glue gun and let them dry.
4. Smear the premixed tile grout over the cookie tray and work it down into the gaps between the china pieces. You can use the putty knife or your fingers. Don’t pile on too much grout-you can always add more. Your goal is to fill the gaps right up to the tops of the china pieces, smoothing the grout to form a relatively flat and even surface. Use the damp rag to wipe excess grout off the tops of the pieces so the color and pattern are exposed.
5. Allow the tray to dry for 24 hours. When the grout has dried, use the steel wool to gently remove the excess grout from the sides of the tray, if necessary.