How to make a pique assiette mosaic house number plate by the direct method Safety first If you can see, and you quite like the experience, you must wear safety goggles whenever you are breaking up mosaic materials. Chips can fly off at high speed over surprising distances. Similarly a dust mask will protect you from breathing in dust from broken ceramics etc, or when mixing cement grout. It's not often that I get cut when making mosaics, but make sure you've got access to clean water and plasters in case it happens. Don't bring food or drink into the area where you're working either. OK? Step one There's a lot to be said for throwing crockery against a wall, particularly if you've had a stressful day, but it won't necessarily give you the most useful shards. A good alternative is to wrap your chosen target in heavy cloth and hit it with a hammer - this works quite well with tiles, especially if you have a lot to break up. However, what I do most is to use tile nippers, as shown in the picture. You only need to put the edge of the crockery a few millimetres into the jaws of the nippers and squeeze. With practice you can get the line of the cut to go where you want, although it's never 100%. Because this house number will go outdoors I'm using weatherproof board as a base. I've scored it with a Stanley knife (you can see