Mirror Makeover

Look at this...uh...not-quite-a-beauty of a mirror. I found her at my local second-hand store named Desert Industries. Well, she's not quite beautiful yet but she has a lot of potential. It has pink plastic laminate on the front and grey laminate on the outer edge with a little fake gold leafing on the inside that is flaking off ever so nicely.

It really doesn't look so bad in these pictures but it sure was not very pretty.

Here's the backside.

Enough of the "before" pictures, let's get onto the redo! Here are the supplies I used: Mod Podge and brush, Lacey Scrapbook Paper about 3 12x12 sheets, scissors, black spray paint, and screw driver.

First, I removed all the fake gold leafing from the edges.

It came off pretty easily, which was a bonus but then it revealed the blah grey edge.

This next part is where the fun comes in. I took the Lacey Scrapbook Paper and measured out how exactly I wanted it to be placed. The picture above is of my first section. I was able to get about 3 sections placed per I sheet of 12x12 scrapbook paper. (Did you get all of that?) AS you can see there are some spots where the paper hangs over and other places where the paper is missing-like the upper right corner of the piece that I just put on.

First I slapped the Mod Podge onto the frame, put the already cut out piece of paper on, and then put another coat of Mod Podge. I did the same thing around all the front of the mirror.

You can see that I am almost done. I'm sorry for not taking pictures of how I bridged the gaps between the sections of paper. My bad!

For those gaps I just trimmed some curly-q's off of my excess and placed them neatly where I felt there was too large of a gap. I had to keep reminding the perfectionist in me that minor gaps wouldn't be noticed once I spray painted the whole thing.

Here she is with all the Lacey Paper in place. It may look cute in the picture with the black paper on the pink, but again, it was not as pretty in person as it looks in the picture. You might be able to tell where the sections come together if you look close. Do you see how I just added extra swirls of paper to make it less gappy (that may not be a word).

Here she is in all her spray painted glory. You can't see all the detail until you get up close to it or catch it in a certain light, which is what I was going for.

I didn't want it to have a completely plain front.

Here you can see some more of the detail. I am very happy with the results and I think it looks great in my bedroom. You could also spray it down with magnetic spray paint before you paint it the color you want. Then you could add cute colorful magnets.

If you wanted to do something like this, go right ahead just link me to your pictures so that I can see how it turns out.

Please give credit where credit is due if/when you do this project.

Let's Hang a Mirror

I bought yet another decor item at Hobby Lobby and was excited to get it hung on my wall. But, alas! It didn't have a nail hole in the back. It did, however, have some wire in a bag taped to the back. Oh Great!! What am I supposed to do with that?!? I had no idea how to correctly attach the included wire, screws and loops. I had to look around my house to try to find something else that was hung by similar fashion. Luckily, I found that my dining room mirror was hung by wire. So I took the mirror down and came up with this tutorial so that you too can hang your nick-nacks with wire if needed.


First, stretch out your wire so that you know about where you want the hook to be on the wall. (I hope that makes sense) Then screw in the holders into the item you want hung on both sides. Like so... I then wrapped the wire around the holder three times...
Before looping the wire around itself several times. Like so...
Here is the final product of my placing, screwing, and wrapping. Now I am ready to hang it.
Ta da!! Here it is hung near the front door. I was so excited to put the mirror up that the price tag wasn't taken off and it wasn't cleaned. Don't worry...I cleaned it right after I took this picture. Now what fun things should I hang from it...hmmm...I've got some ideas.

Making the House a Home

The walls are painted, the flooring is in, and now it is time to add the special touches that make this house more of a home. Here is a plate holder/hanger that I just had to have from Hobby-Lobby since it was 50% off. It even has a little touch of red in it to tie in the red-ish touches in the front room. (The plates were a gift from my sister but I do know that she got the entire set from Target.)
I replaced the light fixtures in the hall and above the kitchen sink. Gold fixtures just weren't cutting it for me. I got them at Home Depot. They only hold one light bulb so they don't give off a ton of light but just enough for places like, oh I don't know, maybe the hall and above the kitchen sink. ;)
I saw this beauty in Walmart and just couldn't resist taking her home with me. I have no idea how to take care of her. The little tag said to "Place 3 ice cubes per week on soil. Do not let your orchid sit in water. Place in bright spot of the room, but avoid full sunlight. Temp: 60-85 degrees F, never below 40 degrees F. Avoid locations with strong drafts." Is that right? If you have tips just let me know. I don't want it to die.
I found this at Hobby Lobby too! I love it. It hangs right above the stairs and is the first thing you see when you walk into my house. I bought it also at 50% off and used my Hobby Lobby gift card from Christmas to purchase it. So it was free to me!

Here is the kitchen. It looks so dull compared to the rest of my house. Hubby and I are trying to determine what to do with it for minimal cost since 98% of our home improvement budget goes into finishing the two rooms downstairs. So for a help to the kitchen I thought I would paint it but what color? I was thinking a light green. Not Christmas green or anything too dark or bright. More of just a tint. What do you think? I cannot find a picture of a green kitchen anywhere so maybe green is the exact opposite of what color you want your kitchen. If any of you have ideas for my kitchen, please feel free to direct me to a website or any type of input would be helpful.


I am working on a couple projects that I will post about next week including directions so you can make them too.