$7 Thrift Store Mirror Makeover. From Fancy to Farmhouse.

Hey Y’all!

It’s been quite a while since I’ve had a paint brush in my hands. Life has been happening all around me, and finding the time or the space to paint has been a challenge. I recently heard a quote that inspired me to stop finding reasons not to do what I love, and to pick up my brush and get back at it!

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams, live the life you imagined. As you simplify your life the laws of the universe will be simpler.”
~Henry David Thoreau

I figured this super detailed $7 thrift store mirror find was a good place to start. The mirror was beautiful as it was, but it was a little too fancy for my taste. The finished product wasn’t exactly what I had imagined, it was actually better!

WalMart has a line of chalk paint and brushes. The brand is called Waverly. I chose to give the Waverly products a try for this project. I can say that the paint is great, but the brushes are not. Save your money and buy your brushes somewhere else. The Waverly brushes seemed to lose their bristles like crazy!

I started out with a coat of the Moss Waverly paint. It is a very deep olive green. I then applied a thin coat of the Waverly Antique Wax.

I let it dry a bit, and then mixed a lighter green to layer on top of the deep olive color and dark wax. The key during this step was to use light strokes with a very dry brush. You need very little paint on your brush. Once that layer dried, I took the dark wax and with a smaller brush got real good in the crevices of the detail. I also added several light strokes along the frame in different areas. Then I made magic happen with white apple barrel paint from Walmart. Again with a very dry brush and by using light strokes I applied white to the high spots of the detail on the mirror. THAT is when I started to see the detail in the mirror really pop! I did not sand this mirror at all. I just used the paint and wax to create layers and dimension.