Starburst Mirror-Tutorial

So, its been awhile. I have procrastinated getting back to blogging. But I hope I will be better in the future.

During the holidays I began a project. A project of decorating my house. I moved my furniture from storage, put pictures on the wall, and generally made my home my own. I had been living on borrowed furniture for almost two years because we had assumed living here would be temporary. It wasn't. So we moved our furniture in and I began a long awaited and very happy process of making my house a home.

One of my projects was hanging up decorations. Well, I had an empty wall for awhile above my couch. It was a lonely wall. I brainstormed and thought and searched and decided on a starburst mirror. But I wasn't in love with the size, styles and prices of the ones available. If they were perfect they were too expensive, if  I could afford them the size or color wasn't right.

I love Pinterest so I found many to look at. Quite a few people made their own. So, here's my inspiration and my subsequent tutorial on how to make a starburst mirror.

Lovely but not quite right.

This I found online at Target.com. I liked it but it was only a clock not a mirror.

I love this one but it's gold and I wanted silver.

So I got my materials together and began this crazy project.

12" plastic plate (hobby lobby $1.99)

100 (12") wooden dowels ($2.99 for a set of 25)

Glue gun (already had it)

silver spray paint (already had it)

Hang Tite Glue for slick surfaces ($3.00)

Picture hanging hooks

Garden Shears (already had it)

8" mirror ($3.99 on sale at Hobby Lobby)

First I divided all the dowels evenly and started cutting them into three sizes. I cut 1/3 in half (six inches), and the other 1/3 of the dowels I cut at 9". The others I left at 12".  Then I got my glue gun and started to glue.

I glued them in a pattern of 12", 9", 6", 9", 12", 9", 6" and so forth.

Yay!!! 

Then I spray painted the whole thing.

After spray-painting it I glued some hooks onto the back.

I also glued a bit of felt on to the sticks to stabilize them more and to make sure they didn't scratch my wall. I put some framing wire between the to hooks and voila!!! Ready to glue on my mirror.

Unfortunately, I didn't scrape off my spray-paint on the plate, or let the glue set for 2 minutes before putting on the mirror. Needless to say the glue never set and the mirror fell off. So I scraped off the spray paint under the mirror, and re-applied the glue, let it sit for 2 minutes and then squished them together. I set some weights on the mirror and let it cure for 24 hours and this time it held like a champ.

Here's my finished star burst mirror hanging out on my formerly naked wall.

I'm pleased as punch.

Here's my sexy instagram photo.

All in all it was a great project, not too hard, and in my opinion really worth it. And for those of you who might add that the starburst mirror is so over as a trend, you are correct. It is. But I don't care. I'll never be fashionable at the correct time. Go figure.

Ruth