Jan18

DIY Sunburst Mirrors

2. Use the tip of your pencil or pen to poke two holes through each piece of cardboard.  You want your holes to be towards the top, third of the cardboard cut-outs so your mirror hangs flat against the wall when hung.

 

3.  Thread your scrap string through the holes that you made on each cardboard cut-up and tie the thread in a knot.  Set cardboard cut-outs aside for later.

TIP — We used some left over twine from from another project for our string.  Sewing thread works well too!

4.  Unwind some craft wire and use your scissors to cut your wire into 16, 6.5″ pieces; 18, 8.5″ pieces; and 22, 10.5″pieces.

TIP — If you don’t have a ruler handy, you can use your 3″ mirror to measure out your 6.5″ pieces and the 4″ mirror to measure the 8.5″ pieces — just make sure you let your wire hang over a tiny bit.

TIP — You should have extra wire leftover so feel free to cut a few extra pieces for each mirror if you like the look of a fuller looking sunburst.

5.  Bend your wire pieces in half until they are shaped like a petal shape and set them in piles according to size.  Set aside petal shaped wire piles for later.

6.  Next, you will want to measure out the gold bead necklace by placing it on the edge of the face of each mirror.  The gold beads will hide the cut glass edge of your mirrors.

TIP — You may find as you start gluing that the sections of gold beads is either to long or too short for the mirror that you are working on at the time.  Have no fear, if it’s too long, trim it as needed.  If it’s too short, use the excess that you end up with from the other mirrors.  We ended up with 6 beads leftover after we glues the beads to all of our mirrors.

7.  Use your Aleene’s Fast Grab Tacky Glue to glue your gold beads to the outside perimeter of each mirror.  Set your mirrors aside to try for at least an hour to allow time for the the glue to dry before moving to the next step.

TIP — Make sure to snip the tip off of your bottle of glue.  If you find it difficult to squeeze the glue out (it’s thick!) you can always cut a little more off the applicator tip to allow more glue to come out at one time.

TIP — Go slowly when applying glue; you don’t want to apply more then you can work with at one time.  Be patient as you go.  And don’t forget, it you get glue on the surface of your mirror you can clean it up with a damp paper towel if needed.

8.  Once your gold beads have had a chance to dry, your ready to flip your mirrors over so you can start applying the craft wire.  We started with the smallest mirror first and drew an “x” on the back to help with the placement of the wire.

9. Put a dab of Aleene’s glue where you want to place your wire; continue adding glue and wire to the back of your mirror until your sunburst design is filled in.  Even though the glue is “fast grab” you will be able to work the wire pieces into place and make adjustments as you go.

TIP —  Remember — the smallest wire goes with your smallest mirror and so on.

TIP —  Make sure that you don’t put the dab of glue too close to the edge of your mirror otherwise it may seep out as your mirrors dry.

10.  Once you are done with placing your wire petals, add a little bit of glue to the center of the mirror and lay the coordinating cardboard cut-out over the back of the mirror and wire, making sure the side with the string is facing up towards you.  Repeat this step for all three mirrors.

11.  Use a something heavy to weight to put weight on the cardboard backing and let .

12.  Repeat steps 8 through 11 on all three sizes of mirrors.  Let your mirrors dry, with weights on them, for at least 24 hours.  We let our mirrors dry for a full 48 hours for good measure.

11.  Once your glue has had time to dry, your mid century modern inspired sunburst mirrors are ready to hang!  All you need is the perfect feature wall and more then likely, a little Windex to make them shine!

TIP —  If you end up with any glue that seeps out from under the cardboard while the glue is drying, you can always use scissors to trim the excess dried glue off.