What do you need? As well as the goggles and tools shown here, you'll want to have a dust mask, a small paint brush (for applying glue) and rubber gloves (for grouting). Tweezers are useful too, for placing mosaic pieces.
Goggles for eye protection are essential.
Tile nippers are the tool I use most of all. They are the one tool you will really need to get you started. You only need to place a few millimetres of the jaws of the nippers over the edge of whatever you are cutting - more than that and it becomes very hard work indeed. You are not trying to crush your way through, just make a nip which will send a break across the whole piece of crockery or tile.
Tile cutters score a straight line on the tile and then snap it along the line. Hand-held tile cutters can be useful if you plan to cut a lot of tiles, glass or vitreous glass tiles. You can buy ones which sit flat on the bench these are generally a bit more expensive. With these, again, a cutting wheel scores a line in the glaze. The tile can then be snapped along this line. Being able to hold the tile still with one hand, and having the larger handle during scoring and snapping are big advantages
