Mirror Make-Over, Upcycle, & Tutorial

Let me start by saying, this is sort of...a tutorial-light :) I've never done one before, and this was sort of a fly-by-my-seat project so I didn't know *what* was coming next. Do any of you ever start a project with one finished vision in mind and then...that's not how it ends? Well, that's pretty much how this went. The one thing I knew from the start was--whatever the end result--it was going to be mine! :)Over a year ago, I found a cute round mirror on clearance at Hobby Lobby (oh how I love that place). You can see in the close ups it has some flaws. But I knew I eventually wanted to embellish it, so I figured, hey why not?

So if you've seen my shop, my fanpage, previous posts...I have a 'thing' for making magazine bowls. It's actually pretty therapeutic. So I figured why not use the same spirals I make to create the bowl bases, to make a 'frame' for the mirror...only I didn't want to put them directly on the glass. I wanted it a bit larger, chunkier. So then...ended up with this nice, 12x12 piece of cardboard, and found some super bright and bold pages I'd saved up for a bowl...and voila! Mirror time.

So if you want to do this yourself, you're going to need bunches of magazine pages (conservatively, 50+ for what I did), sturdy cardboard, a glue stick, craft glue, glue gun, cardstock or scrapbook paper, an Exacto knife, and some sort of circle template. I got a fabulous pack of cardboard circle templates on clearance at--yes, Hobby Lobby--for get this--39 cents. I used a template slightly smaller than my mirror to trace onto the cardboard in order to disguise the scratches on the mirror.

Using the Exacto knife, I cut the circle out of the cardboard. Next, I used my cardstock to cover the hole. I used Aleene's craft glue--I LOVE this stuff. Gosh it's awesome. Okay so, I centered the cardstock over the hole, glued it down, and let it set while I rolled up my spirals.

Before they are rolled, they're folded and look like this:

You can fold them thinner, thicker, whatever your liking. I glue the flap down using the glue stick, and be sure to leave some openings on each end; these are the spaces we'll use to join each strip together. Mine are about an inch thick. The thinner they are, however, the more annoying they are to roll up...just a warning :) Then start rolling them up, and use a thin line of hot glue to secure them (it works best and sticks immediately, unlike the glue stick).

Okay then! So I have several spirals rolled up. I wanted them to vary slightly, so I rolled them up using 2, 3, and 4 strips. I wasn't sure how many I would need, so I rolled a few and started piecing them around the mirror. At this point, I cut the center of the yellow cardstock (the circle) from the cardboard to have my circle open and arranged my spirals around it until I found a way that worked. Here's a picture of some of my finished spirals.

Once the spirals are finished, use your trusty hot glue gun to glue them in place around the circle. Do yourself a favor, and save the mirror part for last. Get your spirals glued down, press firmly for a few seconds, make sure they're secure. After everything is glued down, flip it over and glue the mirror to the back side of the cardboard. Again, I used the hot glue gun for this as well. When everything is done, wait wait wait...and let it set a bit. It's going to be heavy. I weighed mine after it was done, 1 ounce shy of a pound. For a mirror that's roughly 6 inches, it's pretty heavy. To finish it off, I used the Exacto knife to cut around the general shape of the spirals. So here are some pictures of everything all finished, and to be honest--it's hard to photograph a mirror!

I really love the way it turned out, and hopefully I can finagle some better pictures at some point...perhaps once I determine where it's home will be :)

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