DIY Sunburst mirror

Here is one of the small DIY projects that I was able to complete while on bedrest.  They required minimal labor and I did everything sitting on the floor so technically my legs were up.

The first is a DIY sunburst mirror.  I love sunburst mirrors.  They're all the rage right now.  Again, they were all the rage a year ago on the mainland and I think they're just hitting Hawaii, but anyway.  For the last 3 years, I have struggled with deciding what to put above our couch in the our living room.  On the wall adjacent to the couch, we have this rectangular frame of a beautiful orchid giclee print (which was a gift) done by Jocelyn Cheng, a second cousin of my husband's.

Nice to have talented relatives!  And on the wall opposite from the couch is this triptych o f photos we took when traveling (the first is of a fisherman's boat in Madras, India, the second the glaciers in Patagonia and the third a wall in Morocco), which is over black and white wedding photos of my parents, in-laws and our grandparents.  Again, more rectangles and squares.

I wasn't sure I wanted another painting (I figured that would be too much going on), or a rectangular mirror.  I'm obsessed with these mirrors that I see this designer Erinn Valencich use on hgtv.com

But, again, more rectangles, so wasn't sure about that.  And, I wanted to be sure, before spending lots of money on this mirror (not that I know how much this mirror costs, but it looks expensive!)

Then, I came across this DIY sunburst mirror on Centsational Girl


It uses paint sticks and an embroidery hoop.  So, I decided to try it.  My mirror cost a little more because I paid for the paint sticks (23 cents each) and the hard part was finding the longer paint sticks.  I went to 3 different home improvement stores - Lowe's, City Mill and Home Depot and all of them only had the shorter paint sticks.  Then, it occurred to me that a paint center for professional painters would probably have longer paint sticks since they use 5 gallon paint cans.  So, I hit the jackpot at the Glidden Professional Paint Center on King Street.

 

I followed the directions on the blog( the only exception is that I used different paint colors) which were easy enough to do, even on bedrest and whalah!  My new $20 mirror for above our couch.  I love the way it turned out and it was nice that I could customize the
paint colors, mixing paint until it was exactly what I wanted for the space.