Silent Night Christmas Mirror

Christmas is getting close.  All the stores have their Holiday displays up already and it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet.  I guess it’s because of all the designers like myself who need to make beautiful things for the Christmas season.  

I found this nice round mirror at my favorite thrift store and thought it would make a great Christmas gift for someone on my list.  I love to upcycle items to save them from the landfill.  What a great way to save this rather plain mirror.

I cut out a stencil of the nativity using my Silhouette Cameo machine.  I also cut out the lettering, making sure that the curve of the lettering fit the round mirror.  

After cleaning the mirror thoroughly with alcohol and letting it dry, I attached the stencils where I wanted them.  I removed (weeded) the parts of the stencils that needed to be etched.  Because I’m not the neatest person on earth, I put blue painters tape around the stencils so that the etching cream would not get anywhere I didn’t want the mirror etched.  I applied the Etchall etching cream and set my timer for 15 minutes.  

After 15 minutes I used the black plastic squeegee and scraped off the etching cream and put it back in the jar.  (YES, you can reuse this cream over and over?)   Then, I removed the outer stencil and wiped the glass off with an unscented baby wipe, polished it with a paper towel and washed any remaining Etchall cream off the surface.   

The etching came out very nice and I could have left it like it was.    However, I wanted to add some paint to the image, and the Etchall gave the glass just the right amount of ‘tooth’ to hold the Gold DecoArt Glass Paint on the surface.  I used the paint to fill in the Star in the nativity.  

It still needed a little more, so I added some more stars in the sky with the gold DecoArt Glass Paint. 

I found a roll of wired ribbon with gold stars, and thought that it would really finish this piece.  The outer edge of the mirror was perfect to thread the ribbon through.  I then made a nice bow using a Youtube tutorial from Gina Luker entitled How to Make a Bow with Wired Ribbon.  She explained it so well, that even I made a rather good looking bow.  

I hope you enjoy this project.  

And always remember to “Have A Colorful Day”