Sun/Star/Whateverburst Mirror

All righty there folks, I just had to jump on the bandwagon.  I’m not sure if they’re called STARburst or SUNburst or whateverburst mirrors, but I love them and I’m not afraid to say it.

And, yes, they’re all over pinterest (here and here) and numerous other crafting sites and blogs, so maaybe you’re tired of seeing or hearing about them.  But I’m not.  In fact, all of that spotlight has made my need for one intensify.

And, anyways, the reason they’re all over those sites is they’re RIDICULOUSLY simple to make.  And take all of one hour to make (plus another for some spray paint drying time).

And this is all to say that I made a sun/star/whateverburst mirror and it’s on my wall and I love it and I want to share my great fortune with the interweb.

Here are the steps!

1.  You will need to procure materials.  They are:

• a round wooden blank of some kind (I have no idea what it’s called, I found it at Michael’s Crafts in the wood working aisle.  It was about three bucks? I think?)
• a round mirror that fits onto that wooden blank (Check the framing section.  Fortuitously, these two items fit each other perfectly and the mirror was also a mere few dollars.)
• a bunch of kabob sticks (these came from my mother’s kitchen)
• a hot glue gun (crafter’s delight… never leave home without) 
• some means for hanging this mirror on the wall (you will see that I used rope, glue, and a nail)
• I also used a metal cutting tool for cutting my kabob sticks, but this was kind of overkill.  You could probably use regular scissors too.

2.  I used a ruler to draw pizza slices on the back of my wooden blank.  That’s how I thought about it, not as math, but as pizza because I love to eat food and I don’t really like math problems.  I will admit this.
I used these lines to figure out that I needed 32 kabob sticks.

3.  I also drew a little box surrounding the middle point to leave room for a hanging apparatus as well as standardize the lengths of each stick.  I didn’t want to accidentally glue some closer or farther from the edge.  (Scroll down to see what this looks like)

4.  I left half of the sticks long, and cut half by about two inches to create a varied pattern.

5.  Then I began to glue.  First the long sticks:

6.  And then the shorter ones:

This is what it looked like when I had glued all of the long sticks:

And then here it is with the shorter ones glued on as well:

7.  And then the fun part, spraypaint-a-palooza (I used gold because I wanted it nice and gaudy):

8.  Then, not pictured because it would be boring, I waited for the paint to dry.  This took about an hour.

9.  Then, not pictured because I forgot, I glue-gunned the mirror onto the sun/star/whateverburst.  Thus turning this whole shebang into a sun/star/whateverburst mirror.

10.  Finally, because I had rope and no picture hanger, I glue gunned a piece of rope onto the back of the mirror.

11.  I then nailed a hole into the wall and hung the mirror (after it was allllll dry of course) onto my no-longer-quite-as-bare wall.

TADA!

So, there you go. I jumped on the bandwagon and I am oh so happy that I did.  I love the simplicity and the way it totally doesn’t look like it’s made of glue gunned kabob sticks and rope.  Also, I love that it’s gold.

I may have followed the trend, but I’ve got no regrets, baby, just joyous gaudy sun/star/lovelybursts hanging on my wall!