Mirror, mirror...

Not on the wall yet, but it will be...  eventually.  ;)

Some of you might remember this really gold mirror that I picked up from the "Mart of Doom" back in December:

Although it is plastic, it was a steal at thirty-five dollars.

But it needed a little work.

So, I took some homemade chalk paint to her:

I liked her just plain white, but I really wanted to make those details pop.  So, I broke out the technique glaze.

When I first started upcycling and making over furniture, I would read all these bloggers talking about glazing.  Kind of like how they talk about ASCP -  It took me FOREVER to put Annie Sloan Chalk Paint and ASCP together.  Hey, I'm blond.  What can I say?

Anyhoo...  I had no clue who, what, when, where, why, or how to glaze.  So, for those of you who are newbies, here's a few quick instructions on how to glaze.  I'm not sure if its the "right" way or not, but its "my" way and I've never had any issues with it.  So, here goes...

For those of you who have never used technique glaze, its a great alternative to age furniture, or in this case - a mirror.  Or, it can really make detailing stand out.  Sometimes I use wax, but I wasn't liking the idea of having to dig chunks of wax out of all the crevices.  I really need to get one of those nifty brushes.  Sorry, ADD moment...  So, that's why I went with the glaze.

Its pretty simple.  Trust me.  If it wasn't, I wouldn't do it.  ;)  I basically mix about a cup of technique glaze to an ounce of colored paint.  You can glaze with any color your little heart desires, so its a fun alternative to plain light or dark wax.

I really wanted to go with a gray glaze, but it was too light.  So, I mixed in some brown paint with the gray paint and glaze.  Its always good to do a small area first, just to make sure you like how it's looking.

The first thing you're going to do is put it on with a brush.  There's no special way, just slap it on there.  I used a craft brush, just because I really wanted to control the size of the space I was glazing.

The big thing with glaze is, you don't want to do too big of an area at once on a piece that has as much detail as this mirror does.  You will run the risk of the glaze partially drying before you have a chance to wipe it off.

Now, you're not going to wipe all of it off.  You need to just wipe it gently.  Technically, I usually use a cotton t-shirt, but I was too lazy to find one to cut up (and Scott is running out of old shirts and is going to start to notice), so I just used a dish cloth.  Some people recommend dampening the cloth you're using, but personally I don't feel like it gives me as much control over how much I'm removing.  That's my personal preference though.

Gently wipe in the direction of the pattern, being sure to leave some residue behind.

Next, because of all the different grooves and crevices, I took a Q-tip to it.  Are there never ending uses to a Q-tip or what?  LOL

I just cleaned around inside of all the crevices where the glaze had really pooled.  Tedious?  Yes.  Monotonous?  Yes.  But necessary. You don't want it to look all gunked up.  In my world, "gunked" is a word.  ;)

Here, you can see the difference between glazed and unglazed:

Left Side:  Glazed
Right Side:  Unglazed

And the final result is a piece that has been freshly painted, but looks ages old.  And the detailing is so much more defined than it would have been if I had left it pure white.  And sooooo much better than that gaudy gold. (No offense to peeps that might like gaudy gold.  :P )

A quick before:

Gaudy Gold

Antiqued White

And so much more fun than painting on the furniture or walls.

I'm such an instant gratification lush.  ;)

And I cannot wait to hang this on the wall in the dining room...  whenever that may be.  HA.

But, at least I did get something done that was worth blogging about.  LOL

And just so you know I'm actually working on some stuff, here's a sneak peek of the dining room table:

She's finally done, but I'm still working on the chairs.  I'm not sure what's up with the wonky colors of the blue in this photo, but I can assure you that she's a gorgeous distressed one tone blue.  ;)

So, now you know what I'm working on tomorrow...  The chairs.

Until then y'all...