Just a quick one today to introduce you to this now gorgeous mirror. It was originally part of a large chest of drawers that I wanted to use as a dining buffet for our large balcony, so I removed the mirror and it took on an identity of it's own!

I needed to do a little work to the bottom to fill in the holes where it attached to the chest of drawers and I rounded the sharper edges off the bottom with my palm sander. I added some fitting so that it could now be hung from a wall proudly by itself.

As for the paint finish, I wanted to have a little fun with some crackle medium, so I masked up the mirror totally and sprayed the frame silver. After this was dry, I added a layer of crackle medium to the areas that I wanted to see some silver cracking through the white paint I was going to use. Now the thicker you apply the crackle medium the bigger the cracks are and you have to wait until this is totally dry before applying your topcoat.

I chose white as I wanted a nice neutral look that could be used in many rooms, but I added a little grey just to take off some of the brightness. Now was the time to apply the white topcoat, and you only get one chance at this as applying paint over the dry crackle medium activates it and it quickly starts to do its job and crack the white paint. If you go over areas again you are going to end up with icky blobs and messes so apply the white paint as quickly as you can and move on! You can always go back once it's all dry and touch up any bits you've missed, but do not be tempted to re-brush over areas you've just painted...trust me!!

Once all the white had been applied and cracked, I did a tiny amount of distressing so that some of the dark brown original wood showed through. To protect the finish I gave the whole thing a coat of clear wax and then added some grey wax to the detailing - I did another 2 coats over clear wax over the next two days to give it the best chance of surviving as although this piece will be on the wall and rarely ever touched I wanted to make sure the cracked paint didn't start flaking off easily.

So now we have a romantic vintage style mirror with a touch of bling subtly shining through from underneath!