Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

Okay, sorry, but I haven’t been able to do any new projects, but since none of you read this post before, this is new to you. Right? I hopefully will get a project finished for next time, but this was one of my favorite projects I did last year, so that works, right? Did everyone have a good Christmas & New Years? Ours was a nice, relaxing (once we finished moving) break!

I can’t take credit for this idea. My wonderful friend Rhonda had a huge piece of wood at her house that she’d done this with. I did mine a different shape, and a little different idea…

If you have a mirror that is broken, use it for cool art!

I actually started with a piece of mirror that I got from a glass shop in town. They have tons of pieces that they can’t use, and just end up throwing away, so they just gave it to me.

I put it in a garbage bag so shards wouldn’t go flying.

And dropped it

7 years bad luck? Maybe…Break them as little or as big as you want, depending on the size of your base or the look you want.

Paint your base however you want…

Then start laying out the mirror pieces on them

Zebra?

And a circle. This was during the summer when we lived in a rental with sa-wheet orange kitchen counters!!

Then glue them down using liquid nails construction adhesive. Make sure they are all glued down!

And hang up your unique art piece (Mine are currently in storage…)

Next up….If you have a mirror with just a lil’ ol crack in it!!!

I had a very run-of-the-mill mirror that you can buy pretty much everywhere. It was just leaning on a wall, and taking up space. I decided I wanted to try and hang it horizontally above my desk. As I was hanging it, I dropped it. Serves me right for trying to do it without someone else to hold up the other side! When it fell, it cracked (luckily not shattered!). I got so frustrated I hid it under the bed until I decided what to do with it.

One night, in the shower (you’ll find that’s where all my ideas seem to come from; maybe because I can’t hear kids screaming?!?), I thought of trying to paint the mirror to camouflage the crack. I got up the next morning, and started doodling ideas with a dry erase marker.

Don’t mind the awesome shag green carpet in my bedroom in our old rental…See my lovely assistant? Who care’s if she’s not even 1, she’s going to help! This was the zebra print idea

This was a giant flower idea, using the crack as a stem…

And this was the winner. A bunch of swirlies and doodles on the glass, coming off the vine…

I taped off the mirror and went ahead and painted the frame black. So, at this point, I was trying to decide how to cover up the crack…Another idea…Electrical Tape! It was already black! Brilliant! I taped up the crack, and then just for balance sake, taped a smaller area on the other corner so it would be the same width. I actually went through and free-hand painted all the swirls and such, and decided I didn’t like it. Yeah, I’m picky like that.

See the orange counters?

This was the first time around with free-hand. It wasn’t bad, I just wasn’t loving it. So I used the metal scraper (actually for baking, but whatever…) and scrapped all the paint off. This time I made a stencil (upper left corner) and tried it again

Here it is going with the stencil. See the stick? I was using that to touch-up parts where it bled a little under the stencil. I really am that crazy. It took FOREVER but it made the lines look so crisp!

Then, I hung it on my wall…by myself! You’re thinking, Ashlee, don’t you learn? That’s why you broke it the first time! Yeah, I’m just not patient enough to wait for the busy hubby to get home. I took precautions this time though, so it made it up with no casualties!

Can you tell there’s a crack? I love how it turned out! And since doing this, I’ve seen this:

From Target

From Anthropologie

And this:

From Thrifty Décor Chick. I love looking through all her cool ideas! It made me happy that I had thought to hang one horizontally before seeing these…Also, think of what designs you could do with your own! Any color!

So, even if you break a mirror, there’s hope for it still!! Happy New Year!

Linking up to The CSI Project