Remember the Mirror Fail?

You know sometimes when you make something and you’re so happy with how it came out and you think, I might be good at this after all?  I’m having one of those moments.  I love it so much that I’m leading with the after pic:

 Yard Sale Find Upcycled Mirror

Remember this Mod Podge fail:

corner2

 

I promised you that I would try again.  And I did.  I actually tried Mod Podging it again with a different pattern, but I still didn’t like it.  (Which is inspired this post on How to Remove Mod Podge!)  Then, I saw these from Anthropolgie:

Precious Stone Frame - anthropologie.com

Those stones are semi-precious and the frames are CRAZY expensive ($548!).  But, they got me thinking about a bag of rocks I had bought for a Girl Scouts craft we did for Mother’s Day.  I had a bunch left over and I had been meaning to do something with them, but I wasn’t sure what.  On a whim, I pulled out the old glue gun and started affixing stones to the frame.  My husband thought I was insane.  The frame is HUGE and the rocks are about the size of your fingertip.  A lot of them are even smaller than that. I admit, for a while I thought I was insane, too.  Who hand glues a bazillion rocks to a frame?  But, soon I rounded the first corner of the frame, and I was really getting an idea of what it would look like when it was done.  It was just the right green color, with lots of variation in the shades of green.  Some of the stones have little flecks of gold in them and I loved how they played off of the brass inset molding of the mirror.

Close Up Upcycled Mirror

Well, about 4 two hour gluing sessions later, I had FINALLY covered the entire frame. I was thrilled with how the head on view of the mirror came out, but I still had ugly bare sides to contend with.  I grabbed some pretty ribbon from Michael’s and hot glued that to the edges of the mirror and now it is looking very polished and beautiful.  Here’s a view with of the edges:

Side View Upcycled Mirror

 

In total this project was very inexpensive, but very time consuming.  I would say I spent close to 9 hours on it total, including the time it took me to scrape off the 2nd round of mod podged paper.  The budget breakdown:

Mirror:  $5.00 – Yard Sale Find

Stones: 2x $4.99 – Michaels

Hot Glue refills – 1.5 bags ~$5.00 – from Target

Ribbon – $4.99 – Michaels

In total, about $25!  I love a bargain, but I really love a bargain that looks beautiful and fills me with a feeling of accomplishment!

Before and After MirrorLinking up to:  Made By You Monday and Sweet Sharing Monday and The Makers Link Party and The Winthrop Chronicles and The DIYers and Merry Monday Linky Party and Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop and Work it Wednesday

 

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