...you are my sunshine!

My baby sister is heading off to college (actually she’s already there now, but wasn’t when I made this for her), and I knew she would need something to spruce up her dorm room.

Enter the sunburst mirror.

I am completely in love with sunburst mirrors (or starburst mirrors) because each mirror is completely different – like this or this.

But everything I saw was too heavy and taste specific for a dorm room. Until a quick google search came up with these beauties from amazon and west elm.  Perfect! Light & simple,  and I knew where I could get all the materials – MICHAELS! (my home away from home).

Materials

- Silver spray paint (had this on hand) $0

- Mosaic mirrors, they come in a pack of 25 in three sizes smaller than 1 inch $2.50 each *4= $10

- skewers (like the kind you cook kabobs on!) $4 – I think I used 36

- Mirror for the center $3

- Hot glue and gun $0

Total $17

After picking up all my supplies I started sticking the skewers in a piece of styrofoam I had from a recently purchase blender, so  I could spray all around the skewers without having to touch them.  Two coats later I was ready to start gluing.

I started by tracing the center mirror on a piece of cardboard and cutting it out.  If I wanted the mirror to look more “store-bought” I probably would use wood, but since that would make it heavier and I don’t have a saw - cardboard it was!

I used my eyeball it method and one of the skewers as a ruler to break the cardboard into 16 sections (I didn’t take a picture of this, but I’m sure you can image a circle broken into 16 parts!)

Then I got to work hot gluing the skewers to the cardboard back, alternating how far I glued the skewer in so the mirror wouldn’t be perfectly even.

I couldn’t think of a better way to secure the top, center mirror – so I squeezed a ton of hot glue all over, and placed the mirror on top. *Note: two months later it’s still hanging strong!

Now for the time consuming fun part! I glued 100 of those tiny mosaic mirrors (averaging 3 to each skewer)- making sure nothing was symmetrical, and there were no repeating patterns.

Since I couldn’t exactly nail a picture wall mount to the cardboard, I went with plan B, hot glue! The whole mirror  is so light that I wasn’t afraid of the glue not holding.

I couldn’t resist hanging the finished product on my wall to see how it looked – and decided I had to make one for myself!

LOVE! I may have gone a little overboard with the mirrors, but I love how they reflect light around the room.

For the mirror I made to keep, I added  a simple circle cut out from foam to frame the (larger) center mirror, but everything else is the same!

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