My Brand New Old Mirror

In the past year, my Grandma has moved into an assisted living apartment and my aunts and mom spent time going through the house with her cleaning things out and sorting through everything. This summer we were able to get all of the family (all 11 grandkids) back home for one weekend to go through the house and pick out which items we would like to have. So many different items and so many memories behind them all. It was such a bittersweet time - having to say goodbye to the house and seeing everything that brought back so many memories. But being able to take some of those memories and bring them into our own home and cherish them for years to come....words can't describe. 

I can't even begin to list all of the unique, vintage, and practical items that Mike and I received. There are so many that we are thankful to have, but I would like to share one of my favorite items. 

Grandma always had a large mirror at the bottom of her stairs...the stairs we ran up and down so many years as kids, playing house, school, babies, or just playing games and trying to scare our parents. Of course, I didn't think much of it as a child, but as time went on and I got older, it hit me one day that we won't have this house forever and things will change. Change is not an easy thing for me to handle. When we finally accepted that Grandma wouldn't be returning to her house I knew I wanted something to remind me of the house and all the memories. I had my eyes on that mirror....not because it hung at the bottom of her stairs, not because it was beautiful, but because it was a reminder of all the time spent at her house whether for the holidays, sleepovers, flapjacks, playing with the cousins, etc. It's my little piece of her house that will always give me that reminder of her and the memories she helped to create in that house.

The mirror was actually part of a set - it had a shelf and two sconces. Below is a photo of the full set. I had the perfect idea of how I wanted to use it in my house rather than storing it away to hardly ever see it.

The project was actually quite simple. I started by painting the set black. Because of the intricate design it was more easily covered by spray painting. I got the backyard all set up to spray paint using my handy spray paint gun handle (makes it a lot easier on the finger) and went to town covering the old brass paint. Mike thought he needed to catch me in action and it would be good to have a photo with me in it...ehhh, not sure I agree! Ignore the 15 year old t-shirt!

You'll notice in the above picture where the sconces would hold a tall, tapered candle. Instead, I wanted to use wider candles so we sawed off those ends, leaving just a 2 inch circle remaining (see photo below).

Here it is all painted! I painted the shelf too but didn't have it in the photo. 

Instead of putting the mirror glass back in the frame, I decided I wanted to use it in a different way. I finally pulled out the Cricut machine and learned how to use it! Love it! I have so many ideas now! Using black vinyl and one of the cartridges that has fonts on it, I picked the letter 'M' to be cut out. The Cricut cut out a perfect 'M' for me in the vinyl! I was surprised at how slick it was!

After getting the vinyl all cut, I spent time getting the candles ready and attached to the sconces. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos showing how I did this, but let's just say toothpicks and a glue gun work wonders! I also decided to add a little detail to the candles by affixing a black grosgrain ribbon around it. 

I finally had the candles and vinyl ready, the whole set painted and headed to the bedroom to put it all up!

Here is the final product!

Next on my list is updating our bedding to something a little more fancy to fit the set better. 

I'm excited it turned out just as I imagined, maybe even better. I'm so grateful to be able to enjoy this in my own home for years to come and have the reminder everyday of someone who means the world to me and has given me so many wonderful memories!