Tiled Mirror Mantra

I found this white, tiled mirror at my favorite Brown Elephant resale store and saw great potential in it.  In fact, a man also eyed the mirror for his daughter shortly after I, but soon handed it over and said it was meant for me.  I hadn't really grown attached to it yet, but definitely took it as a sign.  Everything seemed to be in good shape and I knew I could get the sticker marks off once I got it home, so off we went.  

My first step was to prepare for painting - spray painting, that is. Spray paint is actually banned within Chicago city limits, so I have to order it online.  Amazon actually has a pretty wide variety.  I'm using a lot of bright colors in my craft room, so I decided to go with a light, but bright, blue for most of the mirror frame, but I also wanted a few bright accent tiles.  I taped off the mirror first, covering it with several sheets of magazine pages, and taped off three tiles to be painted separately in the next step.

The paint took to the frame nicely, so I really only needed one coat with a couple of touchups.  It also dried quickly so I was able to move the tape from those 3 tiles to the surrounding tiles to prepare for the second round of painting.  I chose a bright pink, lime green, and a nice aqua to add my accent tiles.  As soon as the surrounding tiles were taped, I sprayed those as well.

 Once the new paint was dry I removed the tape and the magazine pages and it was good to go.  It's still shown here, but I was able to remove the sticker glue on the mirror easily with some glass cleaner.  This actually ended up being a pretty quick and easy project that turned out exactly as I'd hoped!

So, I decided to add another step.  

I don't really need a mirror in my craft room, so I decided to use it to convey a message, a reminder.  As a perfectionist, I've often gotten frustrated over simple mistakes and irrationally trashed a project rather than take the time to fix it, or see the beauty in it.  I try to remind myself that sometimes the most beautiful things are born from a "mistake".  Sometimes I need a reminder that imperfection itself is often beauty.

I used my handy dandy Cricut Expression to cut the lettering of my mantra out of standard contact paper.  Staying true to the purpose of my project, I made a little boo-boo while cutting the letters, but I decided it was meant to be.  I set the letters out to figure out spacing and attached them to the mirror.

I'll let you guess what the "mistake" was.

I created a mixture of Lumiere paint and Mod Podge to cover the mirror surface.  I wanted to have more of a frosted effect than just painted, so I think the Mod Podge made it much more translucent.  I experimented with different techniques to apply the solution.  I used brushes, sponges, and finally ended up using a sponge roller to try to apply it somewhat evenly.  I obviously wasn't overly concerned about perfection, but I ended up applying two coats, just to really set it.  I think the combination of the glass surface and the mod-podge kept it from sticking at times, but with a little caressing, the application was complete.  I'm sure priming the glass prior to applying the paint would have helped with that, but I didn't want to take the time for that extra step, so this worked.

Once the paint was dry I (very carefully) peeled the contact paper off of the mirror to expose the mirrored letters of my mantra.  I decided to hang my creation facing a strangely angled window in the room to reflect light and really brighten the corner.  I really like the message, but if I get bored with the colors, it seems that the paint would easily come off of the mirror, but only if I want it to.