Mirror...Uh...Mirror?...

Poor old lonely, ugly, dusty mirror

Hello, Happy Sunday and Welcome to the Farm!  I hope you have all had a good week and were blessed with fairly good weather as well.  I was so happy that we didn't get snow!  Looks like it's coming this week though.  8-12 inches predicted by Wednesday, and that's in town.  I just happen to NOT live in town, but in a snow belt, so for me, it's more than likely 12-who knows how many inches.  Ugh.  What to do...what to do...  Oh, I know!  Stay inside and work on STUFF!  You know, the fun stuff, not the not-gonna-be-fun-no-matter-how-many-times-I-try-to-convince-myself stuff.

I've kind of gotten a head start on the "stuff" part, even though there isn't any snow yet.  Oops, my bad.  Thought there was.  Hee hee hee.  So what do I have for you today, you ask?  Well, that's a good question!  I've got several different projects in line from the thought process all the way down to the just finished it process (mostly the thought process, though; I'm kinda slow that way).  You know how it is - you start with one thing and then all of a sudden your mind goes somewhere else because of a product, method, or whatever, brings a new thought to you.  Yep, that's what happens.  This project sort of came out of the fact that I got a 4-month old puppy last week.  And the fact that I didn't want to write on my chalkboard refrigerator (remember my Chalk It Up...post?) because I like it too much to use it for a chalkboard.  Duh...now THERE'S some keen sense for you.  LOL  

Nice prettied up mirror, uh, chalkboard!

Anyhoooooo, as I was getting ready for work one morning (which, by the way, is the WORST time to come up with an idea!) I had to shut my bedroom door because our new puppy kept trying to grab my nylons.  And my clothes.  And my shoes.  Dang it!  So, as I shut the door, I'm like...WHOA!  That mirror is seriously dusty!  And you can see that for yourself in the pictures here.  Eek!  How did that happen?  I'm really not a dirty person, honest.  Well, how that happened is that this mirror NEVER gets used.  And my bedroom door RARELY gets shut.  So, with the combination of the two, I completely forgot it was there.  Yes, I do vacuum around it, but it's become such a staid fixture that I don't even remember it being there at all.  Sad, sad situation and lonely, lonely, ugly mirror.

Now, I know you're going to ask...WHY do you have a lonely, ugly, dusty mirror in the first place?  Well, it's like this.  I have had that mirror longer than my daughter has been alive (I think), and she is now 21.  Ok, that's pathetic.  It's one of those cheapy mirrors that you can find at a big box store for about $5 on sale and only about $10 not on sale.  Except way back in the day, I'm pretty sure I remember paying nothing.  I actually kind of remember it showing up on the door one day and that's really about it.  It's entirely possible that it came with a house we bought when my daughter was just a baby; that's how much I remember about it.  Pathetic indeed.  I'm guessing that it's just followed me, because I cannot remember moving the darn thing!  At any rate, it's still here with me.  And it was in some desperate need of sprucing up, looking pretty, and going out!

Vintage garlic press

So, as I was hurriedly getting dressed so Baxter (the new puppy) wouldn't chew my clothes to shreds, it came to me.  The mirror HAS TO GO.  I'm so sorry to even think it, but IT'S TIME.  BYE BYE MIRROR.  Cuz, you see, this is how it is.  Remember that fairy tale...Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall...Well, no one in this house cares because you're ugly and we don't want to talk to you.  Ew.  Get away!  All day I thought about that mirror.  What could I do?  Throw it away?  I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to, but since I've had it for so long, I feel like we're bonded in some alien-like, freaky way.  No, I couldn't throw it away.  Hmmmm...seriously, WHAT do you do with one of "those" things?

Finally, two days later, it hit me.  (I told you, I'm a little slow)  Since I refuse to write on my refrigerator, which I chalk painted for just that purpose, I could make it into a chalkboard!  It will fit on my pantry door, which is a smaller width door, and will certainly spruce it up a little.  Yay, problem solved!  Uh...not so much. I had this grand plan to mod podge some old cookbook pages around the frame and chalkboard the mirror itself.  BWAH HAHAHAHAHAHAH.  Too many ridges in the frame for the mod podge to even begin to think of adhering.  I couldn't get far enough in the grooves with my pages to have them stick.  Pooh.  Ok, I'm disappointed but I think I can handle this somehow.  DING!  I'll just paint the edges with some of the leftover paint I have that matches the living room and the maple color of the fridge.  Uh...not so much.  As I attempted to do that, it appeared that I would have to do several coats of paint just to get it to cover, and then several more just to make it sort of look like it was painted, and then...well, yeah, you get the picture.  Pooh.  There is no more disappointment in me.  Now, I'm just disgusted.  And sulking.  It did not help AT ALL that I had to sleep on the love seat because my husband was sleeping on the couch because BAXTER PEED ON THE BED and it was too late at night to care about changing the bedding.  And it is our own fault because we were gone too long and did not look when we got home to see if there were any accidents.  Did I mention Pooh.  Well, guess what...We are now past Pooh to Crap. 

Vintage cup and juicer

So, here I am, laying on the love seat with my feet hanging over because I cannot lay on the arm of the love seat with my head and neck unless I desire to look like Quasimodo in the morning and no, thank you, I do not.  Well, of course I can't sleep...HELLO...so there are millions of thoughts going around in my head about our trip to Home Depot that pretty much resulted in my having to rethink a couple of my kitchen projects (insert sad face here); our trip to Brown's Building Supply where I picked up three antique steel knobs and wanted that project done NOW; and, of course, this stupid mirror frame fiasco.  Hmmmph.  As I'm laying there trying to remember any new thoughts for these projects so I can write them down in the morning, it hits me...UH, DORKO, JUST TAKE THE STUPID FRAME OFF!  Well, duh.

This morning, that's exactly what I did.  I took that stupid frame off.  Oh, excuse me, I misspoke.  I RIPPED THAT STINKIN' FRAME OFF WITH A VENGEANCE AND IT FELT GOOOOOOOOD.  Yes, I mean that as evil as it sounds.  I ripped it off and I won!  I did, however, leave the backing on as it stuck out around the edges of the mirror itself about 1 inch.  That way, when I picked it up to move it, I wouldn't cut my hands on the raw edges.  Genius, I say.  The only thing to do now was to take the mirror outside and paint it. This time for paint I was using the spray chalkboard paint so I knew the mist would be in the air and I wanted a well-ventilated area to paint.  Outside was perfect.  How much more ventilated could you get?  I am so smart sometimes, I scare myself!  Following the super simple directions on the can, I sprayed away.  On this mirror, I did three coats, but that is just a personal preference.  The directions say one or two.  I did wait about 25 minutes in between coats (again, just a personal preference as I wanted to see if I'd missed any spots while it was drying) and, about 20 minutes after the last coat, I brought the mirror back inside.  I had set up two bar stools to lay the mirror on, and I just let it lay there and dry about an hour more.  You don't really have to wait that long, but I wanted to make sure there was no tackiness to the paint as I wasn't finished yet.

After the mirror was dry, I grabbed some of my trusty cardstock from my craft room.  I had a kitchen-themed paper that I thought was going to be perfect for this project!  And I think it is.  :)  The best thing about that was that the mirror was 12 inches wide so there was no cutting or measuring so it took little to no time to get the paper adhered.  My first thought was to use mod podge to adhere it on, but I decided that I didn't want to have any glue residue on the blackboard so I used some double-sided tape instead.  The tape I used was about 1/4 inch wide, but any size will do.  Simple and quick, and no messy residue.  Loved it!  I really liked the result, but still felt like something was missing.  You know that feeling...looks great, but could look just a wee bit better.  Back into my trusty craft room I went and found some thin ribbon that was green with gold edges.  Perfect!  I adhered that to the tops and bottoms of each paper, and also to the dividing line between the two bottom papers (I had added extra to the bottom as I wanted a larger area covered).  Loved it!  The result was just what I was looking for!

Then, because I just can't leave well enough alone, I went into my kitchen and grabbed a few vintage utensils off of the wall.  Yes, I said off of the wall.  I have had them hanging there for a while (ok, several years) but they just get hidden behind the dish drainer and can't be enjoyed.  I thought maybe they would be a nice addition to my chalkboard.  Simple, but visible.  You can't go wrong with that, right?  At least, I hope not.  In any event, I thought they were really cool looking so on they went.  :)  And, for one of the very few times that I've been absolutely in love with what I've done, I WAS ABSOLUTELY IN LOVE.  This turned out so much better than I thought it would, and tomorrow it will be attached to the pantry door.  

My lonely, ugly, dusty mirror was no longer.  Now, she has been all prettied up and is going out!  Out of the bedroom, that is, and into the kitchen for everyone to see!

Mirror, Mirror, on the Door - You aren't so Ugly anymore!

Chalk Board Spray Paint (Black) by Rustoleum; Double-sided cardstock (So Delish~Spice Rack and So Delish~Everything But The Kitchen Sink) by TPC Studio; Ribbon by unknown source.