Things you’ll need:
Extra large heavy duty box (Home Depot – around $5)
7 inch mirror (Joann’s – around $3)
6 packs of spoons (dollar store) – you may need more or less depending on size of your mirror
hot glue gun and glue sticks
buttons (Joann’s – bought a jar of white ones for half off $3)
Cut large circle out of the card board box.
The diameter for mine is about 22 inches. I made a large compass by using a pencil, some string, and a tack. I tacked the string to the center of the circle and tied the string around the pencil at about 11 inches, then I drew the circle, keeping the string taut. It doesn’t have to be perfect – this project is very forgiving. Cut the circle out with some strong shears.
Glue mirror to center of cardboard using hot glue.
Cut spoons up. This doesn’t have to be very precise either. Mine popped off in random spots. You could even break them too if you wanted.
Glue spoons on cardboard starting at the outermost edges and working your way in towards the mirror. See my spoon spacing in the pictures below. Once you get closer to the mirror you may notice some asymmetrical-ness however you can just glue some extra spoons in places if you need to fill in any gaps. It is pretty forgiving.
Pull off the glue strings.
Spray paint the whole thing except the mirror. I just taped some paper to the mirror to cover it so it wouldn’t get spray painted. The edges did get a little bit of paint splatter on them but I covered the edges with buttons so it didn’t show too much. Pull off any other glue strings that showed up. It’ll take a few rounds of spray painting to get everything fully covered and you’ll have to hit it from several different angles. I used Rust-Oleum Apple Red from Home Depot – the kind of paint that says it adheres to plastic.
Lay out your buttons the way you want them and hot glue them on. I put them half on half off the mirror to cover up the spoon handles and paint splatter. Here’s some pictures of the progression.
Lastly, I hot glued two large saw tooth hangers to the back of this and planning to hang with 2 dry wall screws. We’ll hope that holds it b/c if it doesn’t I will be having myself an adult tantrum! :-p UPDATE: I had to glue the saw tooth hangers on with wood glue – the hot glue didn’t hold – luckily only one of the hangers came off and the mirror was still being held up by the other hanger – whew!
Actually, this project is quicker than you think if you don’t do the trial and error like I did. I originally tried to make this ombre where you had red in the middle, then pink, then light pink then white spoons, which meant I had to paint each spoon individually with acrylic paint – I do not recommend this! It didn’t work for me. First of all, I would’ve had to paint each spoon twice which already once tried my patience and I had several drips onto the cardboard (which I had spray painted white) that just made it look messy and sloppy. So, I spray painted over that whole mess with the red and it looks so much better. Next time, if I try ombre (and I might b/c now the girls want this same decoration in their rooms!), then I will spray paint the spoons ahead of time (some dark pink, some lighter pink, some white, etc) and then glue them on – I will not try to paint with acrylic paint and paint brush again – no thanks! I made this one for the laundry room since I spend all my time in there anyway and I thought I’d like a pretty flower mirror to look at – makes complete sense, right? Yep, my husband thinks so too! :-p
