Thursday 20 September 2012

Vanity Mirror on a budget!

Despite me being sick, and not having a job, I still can't fully rest as there are lots of birthdays coming up! Now, my boyfriends family is pretty silly - they all have birthdays from August to December, and quite frankly it just pisses me off! I mean, space it out for a poor, broke couple! And Christmas is right afterwards, by which time we are more than broke, but I still want to have a Christmas-dinner I can't afford. Now, they don't celebrate Christmas, but I just love it, so it's all up to me.
 
Anyways, I digress. Last month Jian's sister (that's my boyfriend) had her birthday, and we made her this homemade vanity mirror for her room that was missing both a mirror and light. Did anyone say perfect? We were quite pleased with the results, but unfortunately the picture isn't very good.
 

Here's the flower, and me with a 'trying not to look too bad'-face. I would've smiled, but that would bring out the 'too bad'. Might've cracked the mirror ;)
 
 
And here's the card I made her, keeping up with the flower-theme. I have to admit, I was afraid my plan would end up looking like a ransom-note, hence the flower.
 
 
Now for the mirror:
It's quite simple really. Remove the mirror, and sand down the frame (if you want to. I have to admit that I always break that rule, I rarely sand anything, I just paint over. Works like a charm for me). Paint the frame however you wish. I didn't want to sand it down afterwards, to give it the shabby chic look I wanted, because there was a gold paint underneath that I wanted to shine through, so I just painted it lightly. I measured out how many holes I would need for the fairy-lights I bought, made 19 holes in the frame (what an odd number of fairy-lights to give me), and started drilling! For the last corner that had nothing in it, I drilled a smaller hole, made a Fabric Flower and fastened it through the hole. Put the mirror back in (d'oh), and bim-bada-bom - vanity mirror on a budget :)
 
 
Now, what do I do for the other sister on her coming birthday? I kind of want to make these awesome Skeleton Leaf Fairy Lights , but my fairy lights have green wires, and I don't have any ribbons, or double-sided tape (I'm telling you, I'm poor). This might be one of those projects where I find ways around everything again.
 
 
And then my Jian has a birthday two days after that (....wait for it) ...as do his grandmother. Same day.
 
Now, I will try to focus on these three birthdays for now, but shortly after there's another sister, I believe a mom, and then christmas is coming up fast! None of these gifts can be bought, so I'm in a state of no sleep.
 
 
Any ideas?