Mission Accomplished

Aaaahhh...the weekend is over, but luckily, this one was as glorious as I had hoped for before it began.  Not only was there plenty of time for relaxing and bonding with my three favorite boys, but I also managed to knock out my two pre-weekend goals.  For one, I found a fantastic, budget-wise dress for our upcoming jaunt to New Orleans:

Express

While my dress purchase was exciting, the real highlight of the weekend was that I finally conquered my latest project: a DIY sunburst mirror.  I have been wanting to attempt this project for months ever since I saw this on HGTV:

In fact, I had purchased a bundle of sticks from Michaels back before Christmas.  But for months I couldn't find a round, framed mirror to affix the sticks to.   Last weekend, though, Bed Bath and Beyond, of all places, totally delivered and I found the perfect mirror for my project!  Eager to get started, I rounded up my supplies when I got home:

• round, framed mirror
• bundle of sticks
• glue gun
• painter's tape
• hacksaw
• spray paint

The first step (and most time consuming) part of the project was cutting the sticks down to a good size.  In the HGTV tutorial, they measured the sticks to lengths.  Because I have absolutely no patience when it comes to projects (I am always way too eager to see the results...anyone else have that problem?), I just eyeballed my stick lengths.  I had never used a hacksaw before, so that was probably part of my difficulty, but let me tell you, I was very glad when that last stick was cut!
With my sticks ready, the next step was taping off the mirror to create a guide for laying my sticks down.  I used the tape to make pizza slices on the mirror.  Because that's probably an awful description, here's a picture for you:

This is where my stupidity took over....becasue for some reason, I thought I would just glue my sticks to the outer frame.  Well, they stook...for about 2 seconds.  So, this past weekend, I finally had the genius (note sarcasm) revelation that the sticks had to be glued directly on to the frame!!!  And guess what, they actually stayed on this time.  I made sure to lay my biggest sticks where the tape lines were, but other than that, I just filled them in the best I could.  Here's what it looked like after I was done:

And now for my favorite/easiest part.  My lovely little mirror needed a coat of glossy white, which is where my best friend, spray paint, came in.  After taping off the mirror part, I applied a few coats of paint and was was left with this:

Certainly not as perfect as the HGTV tutorial, but I am happy with it nonetheless...it will certainly interject a little personality somewhere in our house.  Now the question is...where should this thing go?  I had thought of putting it above our mantle, but Josh says it is not going there. So maybe in Colton's bathroom? Or maybe in his new playroom?  Oooohhhh...decisions...what do you think?

By the way, I'm linking up to Metamorphis Monday over at Between Naps on the Porch...go check out all the goodies.