Mirrors

Over the summer I worked on a couple painting projects for when I have my own place again.  One project I've been wanting to do for a while is painting the frames of a bunch of mirrors to later hang as a collage.  I bought 8 mirrors in different sizes and shapes and painted them three different colors.  I might add more mirrors later but I thought 8 was a good start.  It was fun trying to find different mirrors but I had the most luck at Goodwill and found all the mirrors there.

I started by taping off the edges of the mirror with a painters tape.  There are a variety of ways you could attack this project, you could remove the mirrors, tape them off, use a scrapper to scrape the paint off later, or just paint really carefully.  I would suggest sanding the surface of the frame a little bit as well to help the primer stick.  I prefer painting with a brush but you could use a spray primer too.  I primed all of the frames with two coats and let them dry over night. 

After the primer dried, I painted the frames in black, turquoise, and chartreuse. I painted them each a couple coats until the finish was nice and even.  To give the frames a little more depth I painted watered down black paint onto the colored frames and wiped it off with a rag.  This leaves the black paint in the carved areas making the raised areas pop out (see below). 

Let the paint dry, remove the tape or scrape off the paint on the mirrors and you have gorgeous refurbished mirrors to hang on the wall.  Most of the furniture I own is hand me downs or bought second hand so to give things a personality and a new life is important to me.  I can't wait to hang these up in my own place someday soon.