I’ve been admiring the wonderful sunburst mirrors out there, in all their different forms. I particularly liked the one that Censational Girl did using paint stir sticks and this variation of hers that Thrifty Abode made using wood shims. I decided to do my own version of these two with a nickel finish to match my Metallic Dresser. This was a quick and very easy project!
All you need is:
- wood or cork base. I used a cork one from the dollar store. They didn’t have round ones, so I bought the square and cut it.
- Paint stir sticks or wood shims. Home Depot keeps their paint sticks behind the counter now, so I opted for 2 packs of wood shims. They were $2.50 each.
- Round mirror. Mine I believe is an 8″ mirror. I found a pack of three at the dollar store.
- Paint. Acrylic or Spray paint. I used Krylon Brushed Metallic Spray paint in Nickel {you need 1 can}
- Craft or embroidery hoop. Mine is a wooden one purchased at Michael’s.
- Sand paper.
Once I had all of my materials, I began by sanding my wood shims. Some of the ends and edges were a little rough, so a light sanding was needed before painting. I used exactly 30 wood shims for this project, which was exactly the amount that were in the two packages. I sprayed them with the brushed metallic paint and gave them 3 light coats. These dried so quickly. They were finished within 30 minutes.
I took my mirror and placed it on the center of my cork base and traced around it using a sharpie. 
Then I arranged my shims to see if they’d fit. I also decided at this point to cut half of my shims {15 in total} about 1.5 inches shorter than the others. I used wood glue and placed my first layer of shims around the sharpie line {just over the line actually, so that the mirror would cover the shims when glued in place}. I placed some heavy objects on top and waited until they were dry. Then I added my second, shorter, layer of shims and did the same.
I let the whole thing dry overnight and then glued the mirror onto the shims using gorilla glue. The last thing to go on was the embroidery hoop {also spray painted metallic} which I glued on using a teeny teeny bit of gorilla glue. Whenever I use gorilla glue, I’m always biting my nails waiting to see if it’s going to expand too much {I had a BAD experience once!}. It turned out OK though…. phew!!
As an after thought, I added a COKE tab to the back as a hanger {gorilla glue again}, and then decided the back looked ugly so I painted the cork in pewter acrylic to match the metallic shims.
This mirror cost less than $10 to make, and I still have one cork base and two mirrors left over to make more!!
Here it is with my dresser…
Linking up to the parties listed here as well as:
WOW
Debbie-Doo’s Newbie Party
The CSI Project
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