We have a winner. For the moment.

Well, the vast array of choices has been kind of daunting, but I think I found a way to make the two things I really liked go together.

This is the backsplash tile I like. It's $35 a sheet, so I will be cutting each sheet into three strips, which makes it a better deal:

It was/is really important to me (for some reason) to not get locked into one color for the walls, and I wanted tile that gave me that flexibility. I'm a blue-green nut, so this tile gives me the choice of those two, plus olive green, or khaki for the walls. Or white, but that's not really an option :-) This picture is oriented so I'd cut the tile into strips vertically, and then could orient them one of two ways, so I've got 6 different strips. 

OK, then I loved this countertop, Waterford by Cambria. The blue flecks are bluer than the blues in the tile, though. I blew it up XL so maybe the flecks will show. These pictures never do justice to the real thing. 

So my solution to bring these together is to get sheets of this:

I ordered samples of about six different shades that are close to this, and will pick the one that goes with the blue flecks in the countertop. It should go with other glass tile (hopefully). I'll then use this as a 1"border (i.e. cut a sheet into 12" strips) applied to the top and bottom of the 4" x 12" piece of the multicolored glass tile. The rest will be (much cheaper) white ceramic subway tile.

That's the plan, anyway. If I wait too long to order, I'll start considering other options, so once I've got the light blue tile picked out, I should just commit and order the glass tile and counters. 

Another thing that was important for me was to make the shapes of the tile easy to work with, because I haven't done a lot of tile setting and didn't want to have to rent a saw to get it done. I think I'll be able to cut any pieces by hand. Carefully. 

In other news, yesterday was my birthday, and I had kind of a trying morning continuing to remove paint from my front porch so that I may repaint it, BUT, had a fabulous rest-of-day. Went out to dinner with friend D, who is also remodeling, and we talked about cabinets, flooring etc. Then I went to an outdoor production of A Midsummer's Night Dream with some other friends and that was really fun. I feel blessed and grateful.