Thank you both! You will love doing this. Finding blue and white dishes to crack up and use will be very pretty.
If you're using a bowling ball the pieces will need to be fairly small to lay flat on the curved surface. Try some about an inch in diameter and see how they lay. If you lay things fairly far apart, but some sanded grout at the hardware store, and mix it according to the directions. There are Youtubes to show you how to grout. It's easy and fun! If you use beads, make sure they're larger because tiny seed beads just disappear in the grout.I had a table once where I used a lot of small beads and it was a big pain trying to make them show up after grouting.
