They say a kitchen is the heart of the home. It is not only a functional room – it is where family and friends get together, where the soul of the house shines. As such, the kitchen it is the perfect room to show your personality and reflect your lifestyle through design. And the best place to add a bit of character without overwhelming the room? The Backsplash.

Sure, everyone’s a fan of white subway tile, but there are so many options to go a bit bolder with mosaic kitchen tiles that can help you mix things up a bit. From intricate waterjet patterns to glamorous glass tile, a mosaic tile backsplash holds both aesthetic and functional benefits. Looking for a new, fresh backsplash for your kitchen? Read on for a few creative backsplash ideas using mosaic tile.

Shape Shifting

A backsplash is just the place to get creative with your kitchen. Central enough the get noticed, but small enough to stay subtle, a backsplash lends itself for playing with new shapes, patterns, and textures without taking over the design of the entire space.

Mosaic tile allows you to step away from a typical square or rectangular format quickly and easily without the hassle of calculating every angle and seam and then cutting and applying each individual tile to form your pattern. Sheet or mesh-mounted mosaics come with an already assembled composition, making installation a breeze. The geo tile offers a classic chevron pattern with a little offset twist, creating an elegant yet diverse visual.

TileBar’s Fitz Collection, for instance, offers a classic chevron pattern with a little offset twist, creating an elegant yet diverse visual. Pushing the envelope further is TileBar’s Morgana Bardiglio Mosaic tile, featuring a unique hex cube pattern with brass inlays that provide a glamorous look. In one of TileBar’s most modern Collections yet, the Bond Collection, edgy concrete-look porcelain is displayed in both a standard rectangle and a unique mosaic form. Bond Foliage is a playful and contemporary iteration of the hexagon, creating a dynamic composition with an industrial edge.

Delicately Cut

After we played with shapes and sizes, now the real fun starts: bold geometry, romantic botanicals, and Classical shapes, waterjet mosaic tiles offer an endless variety of patterns and designs that will make your backsplash pop.

Waterjet tile is a technique in which a strong and accurate water stream is used to cut materials such as marble, ceramics, and even metal, often mixing those materials in one intricate design.

TileBar’s Altos Collection, for example, puts a spin on an Old-Hollywood inspired scalloped pattern with a 2-tone design using waterjet cutting. The result is graphic, glamorous, and bold. For a more romantic look, see the Wildflower Collection: a series of intricately cut mosaic tiles featuring a beautiful floral pattern in marble and stone. For those who dare – the Jagger mosaic series could be the next fix. This dynamic waterjet-cut triangular pattern channels glam rock and Art-Deco and is here to make a statement.

Subway With a Twist

White subway tile remains one of the most popular choices for kitchen backsplashes. The classic white, brick format, ceramic tile fits almost any style or décor and instantly provides a cool and stylish look with an urban flair.

If you’re loving the classic subway look but are looking for something a bit different, in recent years more and more companies offer new and fresh takes on the timeless subway tile. From bright colors, to new materials such as glass or porcelain, to textured designs – these subway tiles with a twist preserve the elegant rectangular shape but sprinkle some pizzazz over it.

TileBar’s Montauk Fog 2″ x 8″ Ceramic Wall Tile offers a unique finish and handmade feel, adding a stunning iridescent gleam to the subway look. The Hammered Metal Summit Silver Antiqued Handmade Tile features an exquisite 5” x 16” large-format subway pattern, but instead of ceramic it is create from hammering metal over a sandstone tile in a cleft pattern which creates a uniquely modern and industrial look. Bringing a bigger doze of glamour to the subway format, the Vilna Tuscan Oro Antique Mirror Subway Tile showcases an antiqued mirror surface in a 3″ x 6″ format, the perfect size for any kitchen or bar backsplash.

Raise Your Glass

While the most popular product for backsplashes is porcelain mosaic tile, in recent years there’s another material that is becoming a prominent choice among designers: glass. Sleek, Glossy, and often painted in brilliant colors, glass mosaic tiles offer opportunity for a touch of glamour and creativity.

And while glass mosaic tiles definitely boast a luxury look, they also bear quite a few benefits when it comes to kitchens; glass is non-absorbent, easy to wipe and clean, and requires very little maintenance.

TileBar’s Maya Collection showcases a stained glass look mosaic, providing a sense of movement and fluidity with an ocean-inspired color palette. The Baltoro Collection emphasizes one of glass’s most beautiful qualities, its translucency, with a modern inspired design of elongated ovals. The Remington Collection fully expresses the glamorous nature of glass, featuring a mosaics with subtle beveled edging that naturally reflects and creates a unique shine with an elegant color palette.

Elevated View

Backsplashes are often overshadowed, quite literally, by the kitchen cabinets and counters. If you want your mosaic kitchen tiles to truly stand out, consider 3D tiles for your backsplash. 3D tiles offer a creative perspective to the usually flat backsplash, adding depth and dimension to the space, playing with the light to emphasize pattern, and using texture to make the tiled surface stand out from the crowd.

TileBar’s Sandune Pierre Crème 3D Square Mosaic tile introduces the 3D look with a contemporary geometric composition carved in sandstone, creating a uniquely soft geometric look. The StackStone 3D Collection features a brick look with layered patterning, adding depth and dimension to a timeless classic. The Nabi Collection brings on the glamour with almost a hundred different textured mosaic tiles in ceramics, combining a jewel-tone palette with handcrafted ceramic designs.