I’ve had this floor mirror for quite some time now that needed major upgrading. It is a great size, rectangular with a black border and just a very simple piece from Home Goods. Though, I do love the look and aesthetic of those “old” Anthropologie mirrors and furniture, and I challenged myself to make something quite similar to that style of French antique.
… and you know, because I have so much time on my hands with a toddler now. 😉
Thanks to the magical creativeness of the mind and clay, it’s very possible to achieve these designs!! Don’t be fooled- it wasn’t an overnight project. A few days is what this took between letting layers and clay dry. As you make your own DIY piece slowly, too, you tweak your original ideas along the way.
Thank you to everyone who participated in my insta stories, too! Your input was taken into consideration, and this was actually really fun to make! Shout out to my DIY friends <3.
The particular pieces I’ve had my eye on are listed: they mostly have that hand-crafted, hand-carved look and an old time antique feel. In fact, click here to see my main inspiration.
The biggest hacks behind this project are using air dry clay from Michael’s craft store (white color), a CAKE decorating mold- seriously, and some useful youtube videos for creative help, which will be linked at the bottom of this page.
Since our walls are a cream color, I chose artisan grey paint to offset the warmth and then finished the piece with gold leaf wax to add warmth back in. It’s so pretty.
Products Used:
Floral Mold // to make clay design
Parisian Grey Chalk Paint // Base color
Floor Mirror // from HomeGoods, but this is linked to something similar
Rub ‘N Buff Wax // I used the Gold Leaf
Tacky Glue // 24 hours to set!
Let's Begin!
First start with a base color that you love – I chose Parisian Grey, chalk paint. The original color of this mirror was black and boring… chalk paint perfectly brightened it up!
At the craft store, I could only find a floral mold that was big enough from the bakery section! It worked, so hey! Whatever you can find.
Take the clay and push it down into the tray. I ended up using a credit card to scrape any extra off, and popped the clay out carefully. You want to glue the clay on that is not fully dried so you can mold it to the mirror border. It’s easier to work with and easier to smoooooooth out. The downfall is that it takes longer to dry!
I used tacky glue to hold these pieces together. It takes 24 hours to set, and it works in your favor because you can play around with the clay pieces to make your perfect floral vine. I reset this pattern a few times.. this was fun to make! And the best part .. it doesn’t have to be perfect. Eventually it is going to be antiqued, which antiques are never a perfect piece.
After the pieces are done drying, buff out any spaces with extra paint. The wetness from the paint will dampen the clay enough so that you can buff the spaces out. To do this, I used a Q-tip. It worked well!
After filling in the spaces, use a cotton ball to then paint the clay pieces to match your mirror border. It’s okay if it gets messy, just remember to buff it out as you go!
After taking time to fill in the gaps, and when everything is dried.. then comes in the gilding wax. For this, I used gold leaf Rub’ N’ Buff. You can simply use your fingers to buff this wax out and it is fool proof! The odor is pretty strong, so I’d suggest using this for the outside if you are able to, or a well vetilated area.
Since the Parisian Grey is so cool colored, the gold leaf wax will warm the mirror up and add for a fun gold POP.
The finished piece was well worth the time and effort.
If you make a mistake, it’s okay! You can probably see in some of these last photos that the gold leaf wax got a bit messy. I ended up taking a Q-tip of the Parisian Grey paint, and painted back overtop of the wax. It takes time to per-fect!
I really ended up loving this project! I may start painting picture frames, etc, to match this piece! This mirror literally went from boring to stylish in a matter of days!!
Products Used:
Floral Mold // to make clay design
Parisian Grey Chalk Paint // Base color
Floor Mirror // from HomeGoods, but this is linked to something similar
Rub ‘N Buff Wax // I used the Gold Leaf
Tacky Glue // 24 hours to set!
We hope this helped motivate you with your next project 🙂
Tag us @decafsuccs.
