DIY WOOD SUNBURST MIRROR (using popsicle sticks!) || Actually Alli

Hi everyone, I'm Allie and welcome to my channel. It's once again time for another Look for Lush challenge. This challenge is hosted by Yami the Latina Next Door and this month her co-host is Lianep at DIY Beauty on Purpose. I'll make sure both of their channels and the challenge playlist is linked down below. For this month's challenge, I am recreating this wood sunburst mirror. Now I found it on the blog The Lilypad Cottage and unfortunately no prices were listed or no link to the product. She actually said the item was sold out and was originally sold at Pier 1. So after just a quick Google search and looking up some similar wood sunburst mirrors, I found that these start at around $100 if you were to purchase one and that is definitely not in my budget. I couldn't even imagine spending that much money on a mirror. So this tutorial I'm going to show you how you can make this for at least a quarter of the cost that you would pay to buy one of these new and I think it looks just as cute or even cuter than any of the store-bought ones. So let's hop in to the tutorial. So of course for this project you're going to need a mirror and I'm going to use one I already had in my stash. This mirror was actually for a previous Look 4 Less challenge and to be honest I never liked how this DIY turned out. I just think it looked a little tacky, a little too handmade for my liking. Luckily I just hot glued all of the fringe and detail onto the back of the mirror so I just peeled that off and I'm left with a blank 12-inch mirror. Now these round circle mirrors are super easy to find. They're just at the craft store for around $5 each. Here are the supplies you're going to need. A 12-inch mirror, a 12-inch round wood cutout, two to three packs of popsicle sticks from Dollar Tree, you'll need some Gorilla Hawk glue sticks, some E6000 glue, scissors, a pencil, and some wood stain. First you're going to need to take four popsicle sticks to make your templates. The first stick I marked to just cut the rounded end off the top of the popsicle stick. I cut the second stick at four and a half inches, the third at three and three-quarters inches, and I cut the fourth exactly in the middle which is around three inches. I made sure to label each template stick just to make it easier to work with and then use some sharp scissors to cut them down to size. Next use the template to mark where you're cutting the stick. I started with the longest stick first. I found it's much faster to mark where you're going to cut first and then once all the sticks are marked you can trim them to size. This part gets very repetitive and it is a bit time-consuming. You'll need to cut at least 25 of each stick to go around a 12 inch mirror. Once the longest sticks are cut then repeat that for the next size smaller and so forth until all of your pieces are cut. So while you watch this, just a few tips. I found the Dollar Tree popsicle sticks actually have some very beautiful variation in the wood grain so use a mix of the unique sticks along with some of the more plain ones to make this piece look more high-end. I was very intentional with what size I cut my popsicle sticks based on the wood grain just because I wanted this to look so beautiful. Also if your scissors get dull I've heard to try cutting some layers of aluminum foil with them. Not sure if this really made a difference or not but I figured it was worth a shot. Now the biggest problem I had to solve with this DIY was figuring out how to frame around the circle part of the mirror. That's a little bit tough because you can't really just go out and buy like a perfect circle to go around. I thought about using an embroidery hoop but that was not the look I was going for and then my second thought was using one of those gold macrame rings and then maybe trying to wrap it with some raffia but the raffia didn't match the wood stain and I found it doesn't stain very well if you try to put wood stain on it so I had to throw out that idea. So let me show you what I came up with. It's not perfect but I think it adds some character to the mirror. I had two pieces of 1 16th inch thick basswood, bosswood in my stash. I've also heard it called balsa wood. I don't know the difference. This can be found inexpensively at the craft store. It's probably better to use four pieces but I'm using what I had on hand. First I measured where I need to cut my boards down. I cut both pieces to 13 and a half inches and then taped them together so they line up. I then found the middle of the large and smaller pieces and lined them up and taped them together. Just so I had a guide, I traced my mirror onto the boards but you could probably skip this step. Now in order to create a perfect circle, I tied a string to a pushpin and then tied that string to my pencil. I stuck the pin exactly in the middle through the seams of the wood until it's stuck into my cutting mat. Then I carefully drew the circle the best I could around the boards to make the outer ring and repeated that again to make the inner ring. Then I used my utility knife to carefully cut out the circles. Once all the pieces are done, it's time to stain them. I'm using Minwax golden pecan stain because it enhances the natural color of the wood and brings in a really nice golden tone. You could of course use whatever color matches your decor. I applied just one coat of stain to all of the pieces and wiped the excess off right away. Then I let the pieces dry for a few hours before moving on. To start assembling your mirror, you're going to need a base so I'm going to use a 12 inch wood circle that I found at Jo-Ann Fabrics. Now this is probably one of the more expensive supplies you'll need for this project. For some reason, wood circle cutouts are kind of on the pricey side given what they are. So I'll link a few on my blog which that link is in the description that range from about $10 to $15 which is about the average price for one of these wood circle cutouts. Now the key for assembling this mirror is these Gorilla hot glue sticks. They make sure this mirror will hold up long-term. To start, I glued down the first four pieces just to see how they'll all fit together in the end but this is how to assemble the mirror. First, alternate between the two longest popsicle sticks going all the way around the wood circle cutout. I made sure the ends of each stick were right up next to each other where I glued them down but then that they angled out to create the sunburst look with about slightly less than one popsicle stick wide gap between them. I hope that makes sense. After the first layer of sticks are glued, then it's time to glue down the second layer. I just glued them down right on top of the first layer of popsicle sticks, placing them in the gap between the larger pieces and of course making sure to alternate the sizes as you see here. And if you do this DIY, make sure you vary the tones of the wood along with the knots and wood grain and all that stuff. It makes it just look so much better if you're very mindful of where you place all of your pieces. After the sunburst was assembled, I took ten popsicle sticks and glued them together and then glued them in a diamond formation to the center of the wood cutout. This is because the sunburst adds some bulk around the edges and the middle of the mirror will need something to hold on to. To attach the mirror, I put lots of globs of E6000 industrial strength glue around the outer edge of the mirror and then also on each of the popsicle sticks. In between the E6000 on the mirror, I added some of the Gorilla Hawk glue just so that there would be an instant bond while the E6000 dried. And finally, to attach the frame, I glued two pieces of the scrap popsicle stick wood that I had left over to the back of each frame piece to add some height to account for the edge of the mirror and then I just put glue on the back and stuck them to the wood around the outside of the mirror. Alright, so here is a comparison between the two mirrors. The original, if you were to buy something similar to what I was recreating, you'd be paying around $100 or more and I was able to DIY it using items in my stash, things from Dollar Tree, and several coupons to get some discounts and I paid less than $30 to make this mirror. So let me know how you think I did down in the comments below. Personally, I think this has to be one of my favorite DIYs ever. I've been saying that a lot lately but I truly mean it for this mirror. I think it turned out gorgeous and I can't wait to reveal it in my dining room makeover. Now if you want a more detailed breakdown of all the supplies and how much they cost regular price, I included a link in my description to the blog post where you can find out a little bit more about this project. Before I go, thanks Yami and Leonep for hosting this month's challenge. Their channels are linked down below as well as the challenge playlist so make sure you go check all of those out. Don't forget to give this video a like if you enjoyed it and hit that subscribe button and turn on the notification bell so you don't miss any time I post. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you on my next video. Bye!