Our dining room walls are very blue. I thought
originally that I'd want to lighten this up with some fun, more white focused art. I also contemplated using some canvases for a
quick DIY to create the same Kate Spade inspired art that's floating all over Pinterest. I even bought the canvases! But the more I thought about it the more came to the realization that this room needed light, and outside of putting sconces on those clean walls - the next best thing is mirrors!
Enter the mirror montage project. I knew after seeing pictures like these that I wanted a few different sizes of mirrors to create more of an installation look than just one big mirror (I'm not in the habit of watching myself eat at the dinner table)
But when it came time to pull the trigger on all these different shapes and sizes it still felt like I needed a "theme" to carry them all through. Enter my BFF, loud and proud GOLD.
Trouble is, I'm apparently the only one fully 100% embracing the gold revival (the buyers at Hobby Lobby FOR SURE are not on board yet) so there was a serious lack of gold mirrors to be found. So then I jump ahead to thinking, hmm maybe this project is "Magic of Spray Paint" worthy? Well with the vast array of textures I was finding (lots of that don't spray paint me plastic) that didn't seem like it would end well.
Finally, I settled on gold leaf! So here I bring you, my gold leaf tutorial!
First off, I collected almost a dozen mirrors from Hobby Lobby and the like, mostly for $5 to $10 with frequent 50% off sales. I knew I wanted one interesting focal point, so while the majority of the mirrors are oval or circles or some version therein, the crown jewel is a mosaic tile sort of design that will match really well with the
new rug we got for this room. Of course I found it at Target and it was part of the Threshold collection - love!
So here we go! I got all of my gold lead materials from Hobby Lobby or Michaels. They have pretty much the exact same selection. I'd recommend starting with one of their starter kits which include all 4 of the liquids you'll need + 10 sheets of gold leaf to get you started.
Step 1, make sure your mirror is clean and free of dust! This is also the step where you can put down a "base color" I chose not to do this on any of my mirrors, wanting the black (and in some cases, yellow/blue) to show through in tiny tiny areas to create a little patina. But I do recommend adding a base if you're looking for a picture perfect, and realistic gold texture. Strangely enough, people recommend starting with a base of red. Red base paint comes in the start kit I referenced.
Then, you'll take the adhesive and a foam craft brush and put a light coat on the entire area you'd like to gold leaf. Make sure you really cover it all as you will NOT want to go back and add more once you start the leafing process. Let this coat sit for about 10 to 15 minutes so it gets tacky.
Then it's time to get out the gold leaf. It comes packaged between thin sheets of tissue paper and its VERY fragile so be careful as you pull it out - I found it best to get some static on my finger and let that do the work.
Then you lightly place it on your surface, being sure to create enough give that once you smooth it into the cracks it doesn't break. This part takes MAJOR practice!
I used a dry foam craft brush to push the gold leaf into place.
Once its all in place and pressed down, you'll likely have some left over pieces that you'll need to pull off. Keep those for filling in the gaps later.
Speaking of those gaps. So I try to fill as many gaps as possible with more gold leaf. Anything else that's still uncovered can easily be filled in with a gold leaf pen. These cost about $8 but are AMAZING and I was able to do all of my mirrors with just one pen! I clearly got lazy on this last mirror and had lots of black uncovered spots to fill in. This was because my lazy self didn't put enough adhesive on the sides so nothing was sticking.
The next step is sealing. I again applied this with a new, clean, foam brush in just one light coat. It's important to fill in any gaps with the pen before sealing. One other thing before sealing - some people like to put an antiquing coat on to tone down the brassy look of the gold. I was actually looking for that yellowy sheen so I didn't use a toner but if you wanted to, you should do it before the sealant. Toner comes in that starter kit.
And that's it! I went on to lay out my mirror gallery on my dining room table, trying to figure out the width in between.
Then you saw from
yesterday's post that I hacked up some newspaper to recreate this general layout on the wall before hammering. Dan said this was a HUGE help.
Finally before starting to post them, I gave them all a good cleaning and scraped off the gold foil that got on the mirror, using the same method we used to get the paint of the windows
last weekend.
Here she is! So excited to have something up on the wall and something to cross off my to do list!
Have you put up anything fun on your walls lately?
This weekend we've got projects galore, involving painting the den, buying more (and hopefully the LAST!) bit of crown and baseboard and of course painting painting painting! Before and afters next week!
Hope you have a lovely weekend!
XOXO,
KC
