SUPPLY LIST:
- Large piece of heavy duty carboard
- Plastic spoons (# of spoons depends on size you want to make, I used approximately 5 packages of 48 spoons)
- Hot glue gun and glue sticks (lots)
- Exacto knife or scissors - something to cut through cardboard
- Spray Paint
- Mirror
I've always struggled with what to hang on walls aside from the obvious, pictures or artwork. I get bored of hanging the same types of things all.the.time. After I finished stencilling the wall in A's room, there was one wall left that was blank. Her dresser was along that wall, but there was nothing else. Due to the business of the stencilled wall, I knew I wanted something somewhat plain to hang on the wall. I already had some DIY canvas art to hang on the other wall, so I didn't really quite know what to put on this wall. I was browsing on Pinterest (I tend to do this a lot) and came across this "flower" mirror made out of plastic spoons. I read through a couple tutorials different people had posted and decided that it was within my realm of "expertise" and budget friendly so figured I would give it a go. You basically just need a large piece of cardboard (luckily muygarage is still full of random empty boxes from moving so I had easy access to this), a multitude of plastic spoons and a hot glue gun/glue sticks.
The tutorials I read instructed you to make a makeshift compass out of scissors, string and a pencil to accurately draw your circle on the cardboard. I did not do this - ain't got time for that LOL. I just traced a large garbage can lid, and used a plastic bowl for my smaller inner circle. Honestly the hardest part of this entire project for me was cutting the damn circle out. You want to use somewhat heavy weight cardboard so the finished product is sturdy; but I had a hell of a time cutting the circle out nicely. I wasn't too concerned with it, as the spoons will cover the cardboard.
TIP #1: make your inner circle smaller, rather than larger; you can always cut away more of it if need be, but you can't add back on to it. The one i made was roughly 22" across with the smaller middle circle being about 10" (give or take). Honestly try to eyeball it and see what looks good. If you don't want too many rows of spoons, make the centre bigger. I think I had about 7-8 rows of spoons on mine so it looks nice and full.
Here was my cardboard circle the first time around:
As you can see it is far from the perfect circle, but that's ok. You don't see it in the end. Do try to centre the smaller circle though. This was my first one, I didn't take a picture of my second (better one). For my second one i made my inner circle smaller, which I recommend. Anyway, you get the idea (hopefully).
Next up, you need to break the handles off of your spoons. I bought white spoons (48 in pkg) from Dollarama. DO NOT get heavy duty spoons, you want the cheapest quality ones you can get as they are easier to break apart. Some people said they cut theirs, I found breaking them worked fine. Don't worry if you don't get a "clean break" as you won't see any of them, except the final inner row. I think I used about 5 pkgs (of 48 spoons) for mine.
TIP #2 - take the time to evenly space out your first row of spoons (outer edge). I spaced mine about 2 inches apart. Also make sure this first row hangs out over the cardboard edge (about half on/half off) and you want to make sure they are spaced apart enough for the next row of spoons to fit nicely within the row above it. You don't want them to be squeezed in too much or on an angle, etc. Once you've laid out a few of them, you should be able to eyeball it the rest of the way. I didn't do this my first go, and it ended up making things wonky later on, so I do suggest to take the time to mark out the first row. After that, the rest of them will just fall into place. This is now the time where you can go into zombie mode; put on some trash TV to watch or some tunes and just glue and stick the spoons on your cardboard form. This is what you'll end up with in the end:
I know, the spots where you can see the cardboard gave me anxiety too. LOL. Once it is spray painted everything will blend together and you won't be able to tell. Once the mirror is attached and it's hung on the wall, you really won't be able to tell.
When I read the tutorials, most said to prime the flower prior to painting. I found a spray paint that said it was primer and paint, so, I just went with that and did not prime it. It covered very nicely. This is the paint I chose:
I was going to spray paint this outside, however it was windy AF today, so I made the mistake of doing it inside. I had a brain-dead moment and was only concerned with the mess the paint might make, and I found an old drop cloth, so I thought I was ok. I didn't even think of the fumes until I was pretty much done, and feeling a bit woozy. TIP: spray paint OUTSIDE! Anyway, like I said before, this paint covered well. I went back and forth a few times, and that was that. This is what it looked like:
Just be sure to cut your inner circle in a way so it'll completely cover the mirror To fasten the mirror to the back of the flower I used copious amounts of hot glue and duct tape. The mirror did not come with any type of hook on the back, so I need to figure out how I will hang it on the wall.
Ok I'm coming back to this post a few weeks later. I'll be honest, once I hot glued, and duct taped the mirror to the back of the cardboard, it sat in my dining room/creating area for a couple of weeks. I kind of forgot about it. I still hadn't figured out a way to hang it on the wall. I wanted to be able to take a picture of how it will look once I do figure that out, so I just slapped a bunch of duct tape to the back and stuck it on the wall. Here's the finished project:
I like it. One day I may be inclined to make a couple of smaller mirrors to flank the blue one on either side but for now I just hung (duct taped) some canvases I made on either side.
One other pic of A's accent wall, because I love it and it's pretty:
No comments:
Post a Comment