A Tale of Three Mirrors

These three mirrors are over my bed.

I call them

"The Splurge",

"The Save",

and

"The Steal".

"The Splurge" is a Nate Berkus mirror that I
bought onlinefor about $80. 

You know how they say if you have one
 GREAT piece (purse, shoes, jacket) in your
 outfit that it elevates the whole outfit
(even if everything else is a bargain)? 
 That's what I like about this mirror with it's real bull's-eye mirror...it seems to bring to other two mirrors "up" in style.

I saw a much smaller mirror similar to this one for $125 recently so it made me feel better about it's value.

"The Save" I also liked when I saw it at Hobby Lobby.   

I liked it even more when it went on sale

and I got it for $25.

Oopps! I don't have a close-up of it but it is the one with wider "bursts"

that have imitation antique mirrors on them. 

"The Steal" (top-most in pic) is one that I made for $13.

Before I had a blog, I "goggled" for how to make one

and the search turned up a blog authored

by a young mother who made a sunburst mirror

with wooden skewers and a simple flat mirror. 

I wanted a little "beefier" mirror than she had used

 but basically, I used her tutorial to make mine.

The mirror I got was a black plastic one on sale for $12

 at Hobby Lobby.  It is 14" across.

The creators even gave it a bull's eye feel by beveling

the edge of the glass.  I painted it with a couple of shades

 of gold craft paint and painted the skewers ($1 a pack) also. 

I hung "The Save" and "The Steal" a little higher after seeing these photos.

Also, a new accent pillow is in the works.

I won't do a whole tutorial on how to make "The Steal"

'cause there are so many already out there. 

I tried to find the original blog tutorial I used

but couldn't turn it up.  Here is a similar one:

http://nattynook.net/2011/05/21/i-sunburst-mirrors/

Here is the back of my mirror.  You can probably figure

out how to do it just by looking at the picture.

The only reason that some of the skewers are longer than others is that they started

 to run into each other as they got towards the center of the back

of the mirror so I  just cut them off.

I started by gluing the longest length of skewer I wanted at the North, South, East and West points on the mirror.

  Mine extended out 7" from the edge of the mirror. 

I did the same length of skewer at the North West,

North East, South East, and South West points.

The back of the mirror is a mess.  The length of the skewers back here doesn't matter to the pattern.

Only go by what it looks like from the front when you are measuring how far out to place the skewer.

Then I graduated down 1/2" for different skewers a few times.  You could figure out a pattern you like. 

I did do the same pattern in each quarter of the

 mirror but in the end there are so many skewers,

 I don't know if it makes a big difference. 

Just in case you need to know in terms of how one
might look on your wall, the final total measurement
 across on mine is 28" but you could make the
bursts longer if you want to.