Megan's Mosaic Mirror Wall Hanging

So I'd been on a kick at the local Goodwill stores buying old picture frames, popping out the pictures and re-purposing the frames, glass, etc when I saw a 2'x3' cork board for $4. I figured I'd cover it with fabric or something, anything really. So it sat in the back of my car for a good,solid month before I decided I wanted to make it a mirror. I have no mirrors in my house (except the bathroom) and I get yelled at for it all the time. I Googled "mirror mosaics" to see what I could do and saw a lot of mirrors with a large center mirror and mosaic tiles around it, which I didn't like. Then I came across a back splash done in a kitchen or bathroom or something and it was beautiful. I went to Hobby Lobby, found the tiles and bought 2 or 3 of all the different sized squares and rectangles they had. I spent about $35 and got to work that night.

Know that I have no experience making a mosaic anything. But how hard can it be, glue 'em down and grout, right? I guessed on the spacing (a little less than a quarter inch) between tiles and didn't have a pattern, just made it up as I went along, fitting squares in with a drop of glue from the glue gun and pressing them onto the cork. I tried in the beginning to keep the squares perfectly straight but that got tedious and boring. After about twenty minutes I had a problem. I was out of tiles. And only a fifth of the board was covered. $35 x 5??!!  Ahhh, crap...

The running joke the following 3 weeks was how many trips to Hobby Lobby I made during my lunch breaks. I went back 4-5 times easy. I never had enough tiles, or I had too many of one size, it was a mess. But I liked how it was turning out, and I wanted to finish it. I hate leaving things unfinished. I just couldn't force myself to drop the $70-$80 in one visit on mirror tiles. I thought about looking online to see if I could get them in bulk cheaper, but never did. So I spent 30 minutes here and there after work gluing tiles down for about 3 weeks.  It felt like it took forever. 

On my one of my last trips to Hobby Lobby I bought the small jar of mosaic grout. The grouting was messy and I didn't splurge on a trowel. I used an icing spatula I had laying around but that was too stiff, so I cut up a cardboard box into squares and used that. It worked, but it was messy and I didn't have a good way of smooshing down the grout in the spaces, so I started using my finger to rub it in.  About halfway into the grouting process, I realized I wouldn't have enough to finish.  Ahhh, crap... I got about 5/6 of the way finished and ran out.  And even worse I was making some finger swipes in the spaces and noticed they were smeared red all of a sudden. I was bleeding. I washed my hands and my fingers stung with the soap. I had dozens of "paper-cut" slashes in my finger tips from the edges of the tiles, little razor cuts all over.

So damn close

One last trip to Hobby Lobby for another jar of grout and I was finished. The grouting was easier than I expected.  You slop it on, smooth it around, let it dry, then take a wet sponge or towel and wipe over the whole thing to get the extra grout off. You have to wipe it down a LOT and then I Windexed it, which was annoying because the paper towels kept catching on the edges of the tiles and leaving bits of towel everywhere, but I managed.

I painted the frame white and was done!  And I love it. It's very different and very cheery. I'm not sure it entirely fits with my living room, but it's fun. And sometimes it just looks like a disco-ball that was rolled flat, but I'm okay with that too.

Done!

Supplies:
Assorted size mirror mosaic tiles ($2.47 a pack from Hobby Lobby)
2'x3' cork board ($4 from good will)
Glue gun
White paint
Mosaic Sanded Grout ($5 from Hobby Lobby)

Difficulty: 3/5
Time: 5/5
Cost: 5/5
Satisfaction:5/5