Vintage Looking Mirrors (Without the Acid Burns)

I like the look of vintage mirrors with the (have no idea what it is called) reflective part wearing away--especially if something is showing underneath.

Mandi from Vintage Revivals made a number of gorgeous vintage looking mirrors inspired by Anthropologie. Mandi was MY inspiration on this project. She is fearless with power tools and very brave. She uses acid in creating her mirrors. I, on the other hand am scared of acid. So I came up with a way to create a similar look without using acid, oven cleaner or any other flesh eating chemical.

I started out with a new Kirkland frame from Goodwill.

I wasn't planning on painting the whole piece of glass since I wanted the detail in the matte to show. I taped off the area on the front of the glass using the matte as a guide.

Then I flipped it over and using the first taped area as a guide, I re-taped it and filled in the outside of the glass. The glass was glued into the frame so I just left it instead of attempting to remove it and possibly breaking the glass.

I had a vinyl initial made on the reverse.

I then taped the letter in place and adhered it to the glass. (If I wasn't going to use any vinyl or didn't need to tape off a specific space, then the first steps could have been skipped and gone right to the painting portion.)

Okay, this is where there was a lot of trial and error (heavy on the error...) I wanted to splatter some black paint on the glass but I made it too runny. I also was heavy handed with the application. So I ended up with many watery grey puddles over the glass. I tried to remove some of the mess by wiping instead of sopping. (WARNING: always sop, never wipe at this stage!) I ended up smearing it across the glass. (And since the temperatures outside sometimes rival that of the surface of the sun, it dried in an instant.) Which was okay having a huge smear in front of the glass, but I'm going to try to avoid it on future projects. I finally found the right consistency of paint and splattered some drops around the surface.

Then I splattered drops of water across the glass. Some areas more than others.

I then started spraying the Looking Glass spray by Krylon over the top of everything (vinyl, paint and water.) When the last coat was semi dry I sopped (and wiped) the water portion away. Be careful not to wipe too much or you'll scratch the finish.

So this is how it looked from the back. I then peeled the tape off and let it fully dry.

Here is another one I did. I had to deal with the matte on this one, too which required extra taping.

Here is the vinyl on the reverse.

After wiping off the water sections.

I first tried putting fabric behind the glass so it would show through the holes. It looked nice but I liked it better with sheet music.

Here is a close up of the sheet music showing through the glass.

Here is a picture at an odd angle taken with my flash on to show all the holes and paint spots. Notice the big smear on the top left section? (You can't see the sheet music with the flash on.)

Here is the smaller mirror. It will be a gift for my brother and his wife.

So again, here is the before.

And here is the after.

The before.

And after.

What I learned:

1) More coats of Looking Glass spray will make it look more reflective. I would do it this way if I wasn't planning on "aging" it and just wanted the vinyl within the mirror .

2) I would use less spray if I was planning on making it look more vintage and wanted something to show through from the back.

3) Krylon Looking Glass spray is super fab! It is difficult to find and quite expensive. I found it at Hobby Lobby. (It's never on sale.) But did I mention it's super fab?

4) Pictures (taken from someone who has no discernible photography skills) don't do them justice.

I'm very pleased with how they turned out. They're fairly easy to make and I'm already planning on creating some other styles.