Alright guys. I have a confession to make.
I am a cheapskate.
Maybe it comes from all that farm living, family thriftin' upbringing, but when I see a how to on something I love, I just wanna make it cheaper.
Such is the case with the sunburst mirror.
I have made one once before, in fact, it was my first ever blog post.
But I want to make a bigger better one.
And I love the look of the wood shim mirrors.
I just read a tutorial on how to make a mirror with paint sticks, and I REALLY wanted to try it.
So I hopped off to Lowe's to try and score some paint sticks.
Enter in road block number one. I had this vision in my head of how I wanted it to look, but the lady would only give me three paint sticks.
Three.
I only had 25 bucks in my pocket, and I was determined not to spend over that.
She pointed me in the direction of the shims, and after I wandered around Lowe's for 30 minutes of looking I finally found them.
And they only carried one size.
And it was 1.57 a package.
For 12.
I grabbed 5, not knowing exactly how much I would need, and went hunting for a piece of plywood.
They didn't have any pre cut scrap wood, but an employee was willing to cut me off a hunk for next to nothing.
I asked if I could have a 10x10 square, figuring that would work perfect.
We found the right piece of plywood to cut down, and he cut me a rectangle.
He cut me a 6x10 inch rectangle.
I didn't want to complain about my 5 cent piece of wood, so I left Lowe's, $8.53 lighter.
Next up was Michael's.
I walked in right as the door opened, and was able to pick up a 10 inch mirror, a 10 inch needlepoint hoop, and thankfully a 12x12 inch piece of thin plywood.
It came down to $9.57
Grand total spent on supplies: $18.10
I am not adding in the things I already had on hand. If you are pretty crafty, you will probably have a hot glue gun laying around somewhere.
If you follow many DIY blogs, I am assuming that somewhere in your home there is a half empty can of spray paint or stain.
If you don't have those things, may as well stock up.
First order of business? Lay out your crap.
I didn't shoot off a picture of this because I didn't realize that this would be a blog post until I was about half way done.
But for real. Lay it out.
I laid my mirror out and then grabbed every other stick and brought them outside to spray them. A quick dose of gold paint later and they are good to go.
I repeated with the other half of the sticks, this time with gold paint.
While you wait for those bad boys to be dry to the touch, get your mirror ready.
I found about the center of the plywood and hot glued my mirror there like mad. You could of course use gorilla glue and wait over night with books on top, but I am impatient and like to live on the wild side. So we use hot glue here.
After that, take the inside of your ring and glue it on top of your mirror. It will almost perfectly fit.
If you want, you can spray paint the ring as well. Before you attach it to the mirror.
You should have something like this.
Now go and grab your painted shims, and lay them out a second time, just to make sure.
Then, go crazy with the hot glue.
For the hanging bit on the back, I just glued it on.
Pick a spot on your wall that is bare and hang it up!
I'm pretty tickled with how it turned out.
Overall, it cost me less than 20 bucks in supplies to make, and maybe 2 hours of my time.
That's always a score in my book!
I am a cheapskate.
Maybe it comes from all that farm living, family thriftin' upbringing, but when I see a how to on something I love, I just wanna make it cheaper.
Such is the case with the sunburst mirror.
I have made one once before, in fact, it was my first ever blog post.
But I want to make a bigger better one.
And I love the look of the wood shim mirrors.
I just read a tutorial on how to make a mirror with paint sticks, and I REALLY wanted to try it.
So I hopped off to Lowe's to try and score some paint sticks.
Enter in road block number one. I had this vision in my head of how I wanted it to look, but the lady would only give me three paint sticks.
Three.
I only had 25 bucks in my pocket, and I was determined not to spend over that.
She pointed me in the direction of the shims, and after I wandered around Lowe's for 30 minutes of looking I finally found them.
And they only carried one size.
And it was 1.57 a package.
For 12.
I grabbed 5, not knowing exactly how much I would need, and went hunting for a piece of plywood.
They didn't have any pre cut scrap wood, but an employee was willing to cut me off a hunk for next to nothing.
I asked if I could have a 10x10 square, figuring that would work perfect.
We found the right piece of plywood to cut down, and he cut me a rectangle.
He cut me a 6x10 inch rectangle.
I didn't want to complain about my 5 cent piece of wood, so I left Lowe's, $8.53 lighter.
Next up was Michael's.
I walked in right as the door opened, and was able to pick up a 10 inch mirror, a 10 inch needlepoint hoop, and thankfully a 12x12 inch piece of thin plywood.
It came down to $9.57
Grand total spent on supplies: $18.10
I am not adding in the things I already had on hand. If you are pretty crafty, you will probably have a hot glue gun laying around somewhere.
If you follow many DIY blogs, I am assuming that somewhere in your home there is a half empty can of spray paint or stain.
If you don't have those things, may as well stock up.
First order of business? Lay out your crap.
I didn't shoot off a picture of this because I didn't realize that this would be a blog post until I was about half way done.
But for real. Lay it out.
I laid my mirror out and then grabbed every other stick and brought them outside to spray them. A quick dose of gold paint later and they are good to go.
I repeated with the other half of the sticks, this time with gold paint.
While you wait for those bad boys to be dry to the touch, get your mirror ready.
I found about the center of the plywood and hot glued my mirror there like mad. You could of course use gorilla glue and wait over night with books on top, but I am impatient and like to live on the wild side. So we use hot glue here.
After that, take the inside of your ring and glue it on top of your mirror. It will almost perfectly fit.
If you want, you can spray paint the ring as well. Before you attach it to the mirror.
Now go and grab your painted shims, and lay them out a second time, just to make sure.
Then, go crazy with the hot glue.
For the hanging bit on the back, I just glued it on.
Pick a spot on your wall that is bare and hang it up!
Overall, it cost me less than 20 bucks in supplies to make, and maybe 2 hours of my time.
That's always a score in my book!
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