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We all like reminders of our precious holiday breaks. One of the best memories you take with you, is strolling along a sandy beach looking at shells and pebbles, turning them over and picking up driftwood. So, making a mosaic from these typical items seems to be an innovative idea.

Even if we were unlucky enough to have had bad weather, we still take shells etc. as keepsakes when we return home.

Using pebbles for mosaics is an interesting idea, being not only easy to make, but they are very effective and quite popular.

How you assemble them is another thing! Thought needs to be given to the design and subject of your picture. Creating this type of work you really need to have an abstract look. Bear in mind the colours chosen for your pebbles will make or break your mosaic.

So if you want to create a beach and shore picture you will need the following colours. Various shades of white, grey and a dark brown maroony colour, plus for the shore, a sand colour.

The bottom of your picture will need the sand colour, darkest shades like purple at the top, with a mix of whites and greys below this.

So what is the damage? What will I need? Quite a list I am afraid, but it will be worth it! matt acrylic varnish, a deep picture frame, panel pins, whitewood primer, blue emulsion, white paper, medium grade sandpaper, a decorators brush, some half inch MDF and some PVA adhesive glue.

Added to the above you will need some driftwood and some gravel and pebbles. These extra items can be put to good use. At all times you need to keep your picture image in your mind before you now begin to arrange your treasures, driftwood and pebbles into sizes and colours.

Eliminate anything you do not require for your design and, if you have a few bits of gravel to hand, this is good for filling in any gaps.

You need to take your frame to pieces. Remove the back, the glass and its mat. Get your sandpaper and rub down the frame. Take your white primer now and paint inside and out. Then it needs to be left to dry.

Paint the frame and put on your top coat of blue emulsion. This needs to dry, then be rubbed down with sandpaper so that some of your white primer will show through, giving like a distressed effect. You then really ought to seal the frame with a varnish of acrylic matt.

Take your backing board and put a sheet of white paper on it. You can now draw around this, thus giving you your surface to work out your design. Place your pebbles and driftwood on this. Move the pieces around until you are happy with your pattern.

You really need to cut a piece of MDF to fit over the back of your picture frame back now. Put your backing board in the centre of the MDF and draw round it to get the area of your mosaic.

At this stage you can now move the mosaic from the paper to the MDF, gradually putting a PVA adhesive blob on each piece of driftwood and pebble before you put it on the board.

Your pebbles have to build up in lines, for colour shading. You can move things, but above all, your work needs to have a fairly snug fit to it. Make sure that this is the case once you have glued your last pieces in place.

Maybe now you will find you need to fill in a few spaces. Don’t bother with small ones, but bigger ones you can use a fine gravel on. Any other driftwood can then be glued into place. You will now need panel pins to pin the frame into position. Start at the back and go through your board to your frame.

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