I hope everyone had a fantastic Valentine’s Day!! Mine was great and I felt very loved. The only problem with it was a little “mix up” with my hubby’s gift I bought him. I thought I’d be really cute and creative this year and buy him a firepit and all the fixin’s. I went to 3 stores looking for one and I finally found one at Walmart (don’t know why I didn’t try them first). I also bought firewood, matches, and s’more making stuff. I made little tags to attach to each item with their own little dorky phrases like “I WOOD walk across fire for you.”, “We are a MATCH made in heaven.”, “I’m always wanting S’MORE of you.”, and “It’d be the PITS without you.”. I left the items with their tags in places where he would be sure to find them throughout the day and had the intention of setting up the firepit with some chairs and candles and sparkling cider. Well, about 30 minutes before he was expected to be home I opened up the box to set it up and inside were 2 SKATEBOARDS. I know. I have absolutely NO IDEA how that happened (genius Walmart packers), and I wasn’t about to take two kids back to Walmart to try to exchange it and get home and get it set up before my hubby arrived. So, needless to say it was a major let-down to what I thought was one of my more creative gift ideas, but at least we got a good laugh out of it and I am going to exchange it for an ACTUAL FIREPIT today to use when our family comes into town this weekend. And thats my little V’day story for you.
Anyway, on Saturday I decided to paint my office/craft room/guest room. I actually painted it back in July with my mom in an attempt to put me into labor. I had this leftover curtain panel from a house I decorated a while ago and found “oops” paint for $6 at Walmart in a coordinating color and thought we’d just do that to save some $$$. I also had to convince my hubby (which is no easy feat) to let me paint it, trash our flimsy computer desk, reconfigure our shelving to fit a new desk area, add a sleeping area for guests, and get better looking, less cluttery, storage boxes to house all my stuff. He was NOT on board. But, I new I was right and did it anyway. :) (Hey, I’m not a marriage counselor, I’m a decorator.) Anyway, the new floor plan worked great, we got a fantastic wooden day bed with trundle off of craigslist for $50, and the new workspace with a larger surface was much better than our old flimsy desk. My hubby swallowed his pride and admitted that I WAS right and actually really loved our new room. I turned our junky office into a functional office, craft room, music/recording room, and guest room. The only problem is I kind of hated it. The “oops” paint was a dark olivey-brown green color and although it went well with the curtain panel, it made the room into a cave and swallowed the little light from the one window. To liven it up I free-hand painted huge flowers to match to curtain panel that crept up the wall in the far corner where the daybed is. Daniel (my hubby) loved it. I thought “eh”. Anyway, I ended up never using the room for my crafts because it was too dark and dreary and it cast a green overtone when I’d take pictures. So I spent all Saturday covering up my “oops” with bright and fresh WHITE paint. Against the wishes of my hubby once again who wanted me to keep it the diarrhea color that it was. I LOVE my new WHITE OFFICE! It feels so happy and fresh now!! I also painted my tan storage boxes (which are photo boxes I got at Hobby Lobby for 50% off) white with the extra paint so now they are a seamless white organized unit. The only thing I bought for this makeover has been the paint and a bedskirt and comforter for the day bed. Okay. You’re sick of hearing about my room and want me to get to my mirror project. Got it.
I had an old round mirror already that had a wooden frame around it that got too brittle and broke one day. I also had scraps of plastic placemats from my chandelier project which you can find here. So I put the two together and came up with a sunburst mirror I’m rather happy with. Actually, I think it qualifies as a cheap diySunflower Mirror more than a Sunburst Mirror but call it whatever you want…I’m just calling it FANCRAFTSTIC.
So heres the breakdown:
Cost: $0 for me (I had all the supplies on hand) but you’d probably spend no more than $10-$13 on this project
Supplies:
- A round mirror. Mine is about 14″ across, you can find any size you’d like at your local craft store or even sometimes at the Dollar Store in the candle section. *TIP* You can make this mirror more sunburst-y instead of sunflower-y if you use a smaller mirror and make longer “petals”, “bursts”, or whatever you’d like to call them. In short, a sunflower mirror is a sunburst mirror with a larger center. Thats just my opinion.
- Plastic sheet(s). I used plastic placemats, but an old binder cover, or chopping mat would work too. I’ve seen chopping mats 2 for $1 at the Dollar Store.
- Spray paint. I used Krylon Aluminum metallic spray paint leftover from a previous project.
- Heavy duty glue. I used Quick Grip All-Purpose Permanent Adhesive. Hot glue won’t work well for this project because it doesn’t bond smooth surfaces like plastic and glass well. I love Quick Grip and use it for all kinds of things.
- Heavy duty scizzors or kitchen shears.
And thats it! Lets get started then!
1. Cut your plastic sheets into strips. I made 16 “petals” for my mirror so I cut 16 long strips about 1/4″ wide by the length of my plastic sheet which was about 13″. I also cut 16 short strips about 1/4″ wide by about 10″ long to go in the center of the longer petals. You can play around to see how long you’d like yours to be and how many petals you need to make to fit your size mirror.
2. Once your strips are cut, begin making petals by putting a dot of glue at the ends of one strip and pinching those ends together. If you’re using Quick Grip glue you will need to hold it there for a minute or two.
3. Make your inner petals the same way and then complete a petal by putting a dot of glue at the inner base of the large petal and attaching the smaller petal to that spot. One petal will look like this:
4. Once all your petals are made, line them up around the mirror the way you’d like. Once you are happy with the layout, begin gluing the edges of each petal together to create a ring of petals.
5. Before attaching the ring of petals to your mirror, spray paint them your desired color.
6. Once your paint is dry, carefully attach the petal frame to the front edges of your mirror by placing small dots of glue to the backside at the base of each petal.
7. Let the glue dry and then hang on your wall and ENJOY! *TIP* If your mirror doesn’t have a hanging hook on the back of it, you can use a plate holder to hang your mirror on the wall. You can find those at the Dollar Store.
Yay!! You can’t beat that for $0!! My hubby is actually pretty impressed (mostly because it was FREE) and actually thought it was really metal. I also made a starburst mirror out of driftwood! Find that tutorial here.
So there you go! Go out and make your own!! Sunburst mirrors are super HOT right now and you’ll love what it does for your space! P.S. Check out a few of these sunburst mirror projects that I loved from other DIY-ers.
This ones fabulous and although this crafter used old cereal boxes I think it would be more substantial and less jagged done with plastic strips instead. But I LOVE the look and her ingenuity. Find her tutorial here.
I LOVE this naturalist-chic approach to a starburst mirror. Someday I think it will make its way into my home. Find the tutorial here.
I am also LOVING this easy sunflower mirror although like the first one, I’d probably use plastic sheets instead of poster board to make it more substantial. But it looks SO GREAT above her awesome console. Find that tutorial here.
