Make A Decorative Mirror

I love books!  I tend to keep the ones that will read over and over again, but the one read books are harder to get rid of – our local library does not except used books anymore, but I do donate them to Goodwill.  As the books pile up in bags in my basement, waiting for the drop off – I always wonder what else I could do with them.  Then I found a mirror that used pages from books as the decoration around the mirror – I had to try this.  I purchased the mirror for $1 at Michaels and then I had all the other items at home.

Recycled Book Mirror (thanks to Creative Jewish Mom http://www.creativejewishmom.com/2010/05/make-a-recycled-book-page-sunburst-mirror.html)

Items Needed

Small circular mirror
Cardboard
An old book
Beads or other decorations
String
Glue gun and sticks

1.  Attach your mirror to a base.  I used cardboard as my base and used the glue gun to secure.

2.  Rip many pages out of an old book.  I used an exacto knife to make the tearing out a little easier.

3. Place the page in front of you horizontally and taking the bottom right corner start to roll up, forming a cone.  Glue the ending edge to the cone – set aside. Try to make the cones all about the same length.

 

 

4. I glued 4 cones on the base of the mirror first, to give myself a guide (north, south, east and west).  I filled in from there.  I had to really squeeze some of them in when I got to my guide cones.

 

 

 

 

5.  Taking some string you need to glue onto the back of the base, then glue a piece of cardboard over the string.  Your hanger is done.

 

 

6. Taking some beads or other decorations, decorate around the mirror, hiding where the cones were glued on.

7. Clean up the mirror and hang!

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9 Responses to Make A Decorative Mirror

  1. virginia says:

    Wow! What a great idea. The mirror looks very cool.
    Va.

  2. Jo says:

    That is so cool!

  3. Candace says:

    I am sending this to our youth staff who work with kids. This is a great project!! Thank you. : )

    • simply0637 says:

      You are most welcome. This is a great project. I did it in a couple of hours. The most time consuming part was cutting and rolling the pages.

  4. wendy grudzien says:

    Very cool mirror…it would be a great project for me to do with Mia…thanks for the idea & step by step instructions.

    • simply0637 says:

      You guys would have fun doing it together. If you are using a glue gun I would leave that job to you – the glue is very hot. I tried using Elmer’s for the cones, but it did not hold fast enough and the cones un-rolled – it would work, would just have to hold them for a longer period of time.

  5. Great Mirror … To dress it up even more, try weaving some strands of colored embroidery threads or ribbons between the cones. The possibilities might be endless.

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