Mirror Mirror on the Wall

Life around here has not been all about the spinning and knitting. Two summers ago, I bought a whole bunch of old mirrors at a flea market. My idea was to hang them on the side of the garage so they would mirror the garden. I looked at them after I got them home and decided some of them wouldn't weather very well and others were too nice to leave out. Now that I'm in my new apartment, I dragged them out and looked at them again.

First victim - large oval mirror

I found this one for $5. It has a fiberboard backing and the frame is actually molded plastic. It wouldn't have stood up to the elements outside. I love the shape and size of it, so I really wanted to do something fun to make it fit in my decor.





First I painted the entire frame with white latex paint. I had sampled a little acrylic first, but it wouldn't bind to the plastic very well. Hence, the pink smudge. Even with the smudge, it was already looking a lot better.



I followed up with two coats of "Dark Violet" Liquitex Basics acrylic paint. It was interesting to see how the paint settled into the nooks and crannies on the frame. I wasn't sure originally about the color, but straight from the tube turned out to be exactly what I needed. I have purple accents in my living room, and this dried so deep that it doesn't stand out as shockingly purple. It matches some place mats I'm using to cover an end table and there are dark purple stripes in my sofa pillows. Up against my pale yellow walls, it's perfect. It's on the wall facing the windows so it reflects back sunlight and images of trees, shrubs and my birdfeeders. I LOVE how this turned out and it was such an inexpensive solution. I already had all of the paint, so the only expense was the mirror itself.