How to Make a Sunburst Mirror

I showed this easy and inexpensive project last Tuesday and now you can find out how to make a sunburst mirror with simple supplies yourself.

This project cost me a total of $6. It’s so affordable I might make more.

The supplies are easy to find, some you may even have on hand. They include:

• Cedar Shims which I picked up at Home Depot for under $3.00. I used less than half of the bundle. These are neat because they taper which makes for some nice sunbeams.
• A mirror – I got mine at K-Mart for $2.99 and you can use any size you think you’ll need. This part will be the sun. I also found one at the dollar store.
• You favorite colors to paint the shims/burst. I used different silver colors of spray paint but you can easily use craft or even house paint.
• A wooden base – This isn’t in the picture but I used a 5×5 inch scrap piece of MDF. Anything sturdy will work as long as you can glue to it and put a picture hanger on the back
• Picture hanger – Anything that will work in your walls and hold about 10 pounds would be great
• Glue – I used wood glue to glue the pieces on to the wood base but anything strong will do the job. And I used liquid nails to glue on the mirror.
• * Optional – Brads – I used the brads in my electric staple gun to secure the shims to the wood base in addition to the glue. It held them there instantly but glue alone certainly works.

Before I painted the shims I laid them out to see what they might look like. First layer one then two.

I ended up using 16 total shims on this. And I wanted to see what the mirror would look like on top so I tried that out also.

Lookin good!  Then I knew I had to cut some of the shims to be shorter and created a layer effect so to the miter saw I went.

Using this baby makes me feel like a real manly woman – you know what I mean! I can operate it all on my own these days 🙂

Then I started gluing the pieces onto the wooden base and then I nailed in the little brads with my electric staple gun (which also uses brads, it’s great). As a note, I adhered my picture hanger on the back of the wooden base the night before.

Here is a close up of the brads. You can’t even see the base underneath.

After your beams are all on, glue the mirror to the center of the piece, making sure to get it where it overs any of the base showing through. And put something heavy on top to hold it while it dries. Paint, sheet rock compound, whatever you got. Don’t go too heavy, you don’t want to break it.

Let her dry overnight (I always do for safety) and with that you have yourself an easy peasy, cheap and chic sunburst mirror. Now go hang it with pride.

   
Have you make a sunburst mirror? If you try this project, I’d love to see.