More on the Community Garden and mosaic project.

Okay--the community garden idea is currently on hold. Phyllis has run into a lot of snags, and it will take a fair amount of time to sort the whole thing out.
On the mosaic project idea--keep looking for your materials but be aware--if you are planning to use dishes, older, thinner china or ceramic is a lot easier to work with than very heavy ironstone or pottery type plates. And some ceramic may not hold up well outdoors. You can always use tile--the decorative glass or vitreous or even tumbled marble tile will work. The glass tile is easy to cut, the stone tiles not so much. Lowes had a couple of styles of glass tile on clearance, and menards sometimes does too. A square foot piece of mosaic glass tile will run you anywhere from 5 bucks on up, depending. For a birdhouse, two squares should do it, unless you are working on some really big house. If you get multi colored tile squares you can recombine the tiles to make a pattern other than the one laid out on the mesh backing (you just peel the tiles off--its tedious, but not difficult).