Fireplace: That Tile Will Cut You...or Vice Versa

My next challenge in the fireplace project was to snip penny tiles in half to fill the gaps along the edges. Luckily I was able to borrow some pointers from the lovely folks behind one of my favorite blogs, Young House Love. In this post, John and Sherry shared their tips for cutting penny tile. This was so incredibly helpful to me, and I am very grateful to them for sharing their knowledge and experience. 

I picked up a pair of inexpensive tile nippers from Home Depot, per YHL's recommendation.

And then I attempted my first tile. I made sure the nippers were squarely centered on the tile and started applying slow pressure, as John recommended. And then I gave it a good push...

...and successfully cracked my tile. Oops.

I tried again, but this time I put tape across half. Still no dice.

Then I flipped the tile over, and decided to try snipping it upside down, using the existing grooves along the back as my guide.

Booyah!!! I ended up not even needing the tape once I got the hang of it.

One thing I highly recommend is covering your tile and nippers with a paper towel or hand towel, as you are snipping it. This will prevent teeny shards of tile from flying everywhere.

As I started dry fitting my penny halves into the fireplace, I realized I would need a little more variation in size. So, I started cutting several intentionally uneven.

I filled in the outside edges, and am SO happy with how it turned out. Next steps are to figure out what I want to do with the grout (remember my big grout dilemma awhile ago?), and finish off the inside edge. It's amazing to think this project is so close to completion!

  Cheers!!