DIY: Sunburst Mirror

While in the middle of decorating our guest bedroom I realized that I was dealing with a serious lack of wall decor. Not only did I not have a whole lot of cash to spend, but I was also having a hard time finding the right items I was looking for.



One piece that I had been hunting for a while was a gold sunburst mirror.  I had seen a few at Pier 1 and Target that I loved, but they were both too small and wouldn't cover a whole lot of wall space.  The solution?  Make one myself!  I'm no stranger to painting and creating various forms of wall art, but this was my first time attempting to make something like this and I actually think it turned out pretty well considering the materials.

For this project you'll need:
-A hot glue gun and plenty of hot glue sticks
-A framed round mirror (any size will do)
-Wood skewers
-Gold spraypaint

For my mirror I ended up using this 10 1/2" round blue distressed mirror from Hobby Lobby:

I picked up a few packs of bamboo skewers at my local Target.  For a mirror this size I needed just under two packs for the project.

After assembling all of your materials, the first step is to tape off the front of your mirror.  This will help prevent your mirror from getting scratched up while you work, and you'll eventually need it taped up anyway for when you spraypaint at the end.

Tip: if you're able to remove the mirror from your frame I'd just pop it out, cover it with a piece of newspaper, and place it back in the frame.  Newspaper is a lot easier to remove than tape and it should slip out from the front pretty easily once you're done.

After covering up your mirror it's time to start gluing.  I'm not gonna lie to you: this will get kind of messy.  I found that it was hard to glue more than a few skewers at a time since I needed a few seconds to place each one in the right spot.  If you're detail-oriented like me this project will probably take you a few hours, but it goes by pretty fast when you're watching Friends on Netflix as you work. :)

Yet another tip before you start gluing: this might only be for anal people like me, but I actually went through my packs of skewers before I started and pulled out all the crooked and wonky ones so that all of my lines would be straight when completed.  

To create my zig-zag pattern I first divided my circle into four equal sections.  When I sectioned those areas off I glued the four skewers so they were all touching the center.  I then divided each of those quarter-sections into five smaller sections using four skewers that were equally spaced out from eachother.  Each of those skewers were also glued touching the center point of the mirror.  From there I just split those sections up again with skewers that were glued near the edge of the mirror frame instead.  In the below image you can see where the zig-zag edge is starting to form...

Once you get those areas sectioned off you just fill the remaining spaces with skewers, making sure to follow the angles...longer to shorter, shorter to longer.  And if that explanation didn't make sense, maybe this picture will help:

After you're all done gluing, take your mirror out to a well-ventilated area and give the front and back a few coats of spraypaint.  I used Rust-oleum Metallic Gold and it worked great!

And there you have it: a DIY sunburst mirror for under $20.