Wood Shim Sunburst Mirror

Happy Sunday guys.  Did you think I was ever going to post anything other than Tasty Tuesdays?  I wasn't so sure.  New job = very little time for blogging & blog reading...it's definitely taking some getting used to!

I made a wood shim sunburst mirror for my mom for Christmas.  I may be the last person in blogland to make a sunburst mirror, but I'm definitely a big fan of the sunburst.  I have a one hanging over my bed that I bought when I moved six years ago.  I remember it was one of the first accessories I bought.  Also, I recently was going through my portfolio from college, and in my very first studio class I used a sunburst mirror!  I was 18 years old and it was 1995.  We had to chose a quote for the project and design a room around it.  The quote I chose was "Keep your face to the sunshine and you can not see the shadows" from Helen Keller.  Hence - the sunburst mirror!  Anyway, my point is - I don't think sunburst mirrors are a trend - I think they are here to stay!

I pinned a sunburst mirror from Shelley of Crazy Wonderful a while ago and kept looking at it knowing I wanted to use her project as inspiration.  There are a lot of DIY sunburst mirrors out there, but in my opinion, Shelley's is definitely the best!  Her project and idea was the start and inspiration for mine.  Check out Shelly's mirror right here. 

I started with 8 packages of 15" long shims and a few bottles of Gorilla Glue.  I ended up only needing 6-1/2 packages of shims.

I glued the shims together in groups of 5 and 7.

Then I started laying out the pieces to determine the pattern and placement.

After laying them out, I realized that the pattern the shims were creating was going to be too big.  Talk about frustrated!  I ended up having to saw off a couple of inches from each grouping.  Ugh.  But, it went quicker than I thought - but my arm was a little sore!

Here's what I came up with:

Next, each piece was primed with Zinsser.

And then, each piece was painted with Valspar's Metal & Patina Glaze in Bronze.  I never even knew this stuff existed until I read about it in Shelley's post. 

Each piece got two coats of the glaze.

Then I cut a piece of plywood to be just about the same size as the mirror I bought.  I can't remember, but I think the diameter of the mirror is 18".  I drew two center lines on the plywood to help with the laying out the shim pieces.

Next up, gluing - this part took lots and lots of Gorilla Glue.

No pictures, but after all the pieces were down and glued, I put another board on top and then a few bricks and let it dry overnight.  The next day I used more wood glue to attach the mirror.  The mirror I bought was white, so I primed and painted it as well before I glued it down. 

Here is the finished product.  I'm really happy with how it turned out and more importantly, my mom loves it!



Have a great week!

I've linked this project up to Remodelaholic Friday