Decorating on the Cheap: Mid-Century Modern Mirror

I am always telling my boys what I want to be when I grow up…which is hilarious because their response is always one of bewilderment. It’s so funny to watch their faces and their confused reply is always, “But you ARE all grown’ed up, mama!” haha!!!! I have a myriad of future occupations reserved for whenever I reach that illusive state of being “all grown’ed up”, but the one I tease my boys with the most is being a designer. I love to create. It fills my heart to the brim to work hard and give birth to something beautiful. I am especially fond of taking a bunch of nothing’s and turning them into something that will dazzle the eyes and inspire the imagination. Having a huge bank account affords you the luxury of buying whatever you want for your home…which is not a bad deal, I must say. I’m glad there are people on this earth who are able to do so. But what about the rest of us? Beauty is for everyone! Look at how God showers us with majestic, breath-taking beauty in nature! If you are willing to think outside the box, use a little elbow grease and get your hands dirty, you too can add luxurious accents to your home on a humble budget.

I have been in the market for a sunburst mirror for a while now. I needed something to fill the void above the bed in my guest room and I thought a mirror would be the perfect piece of jewelry for that space. I have actually been ‘visiting’ a mirror in Hobby Lobby that is really stunning, but it costs $200…yikes! I went to visit that same mirror last week and they had marked it down by 50%…let me just say, I think that is a pretty good deal, but I still couldn’t justify that cost. Besides that, I have seen so many of these same types of mirrors on Pinterest and HGTV, and I really wanted to try making one for myself. I think the hardest part for me was narrowing down what materials I would use. I was really inspired by the wedge shapes of some mid-century modern style mirrors, so what came to mind was…wood shims! Wood shims are used to “plum” a window or a door during installation. That was my jumping off point and I knew I could transform these humble little objects into something special. I ended up spending right at $27.83 for the entire project. Here’s how I did it. I hope this inspires you to take on a project that will make your heart come alive and add some beauty and sparkle to your home. God bless! ~ Shanna

Bought Materials:

1/4 inch 24″x24″ birch board-$4.58 at Lowe’s

Bronze spray paint-$5.98 at Lowe’s

Mirror Mastic-$4.88 at Lowe’s (this is a special kind of glue used for mirrors.)

Wood Shims-5 packs of 14 @ $1.48 each-$7.40 at Lowe’s

Beveled Candle Mirror-8 inch. diameter-$4.99 at Hobby Lobby (so frustrated with myself…should have gotten this from Dollar Tree for $1!)

Materials I had on hand:

Reciprocating saw (or you could use a band saw)

sand paper

wood glue

staples/stapler

glue gun

***CREATIVITY =) =) =)

: First I drew out my circles…The backer board for my mirror is 16 inches in diameter. This looks really complicated because it was…not sure why I didn’t go about this in an easier way, but in case you ever wondered when you would ever use that stuff from your high school geometry class, here you go….I also cut out an 8 inch circle, which I will explain later.

: Here are my circles after I got them cut out…using a reciprocating saw was both exhilarating and terrifying all at once. I’m quite proud of how well they turned out though! =) You will need to sand the edges to get rid of any rough spots.

: Here is my first layer of wood shims. I traced my 8 inch diameter mirror in the middle to determine where to line them up.

: This is the first layer after I spray painted it, which I did after adding each layer to insure full coverage.

: This is after I added the second layer of shims. I placed the mirror on there to show that you could actually stop at this point and it would be really lovely. All you would have to do is to add some kind of trimmings around the mirror to cover up the staples. I liked it, but I was really wanting a lot of dimension, so I kept going with another layer.

: More spray paint!

: At this point, I was just ‘dry fitting’ my third layer. I highly recommend that you dry fit the entire project before you commit to glue/staples/hot glue so you know what you are getting yourself into. I did so several times before determining this is what I wanted. I actually think that if you could figure out a way to attach the shims just like this, it would be a really nice decorative piece…however……