Boys' Room Decor: A License Plate Mirror

I have two boys, both of whom have inherited the car gene that runs throughout my husband's side of the family.  Before I met my husband, I always appreciated a nice looking car and the tradition behind making them.  After all, my father worked 42 years at Ford Motor Co. Once I met my husband though, I learned what true passion really is really about.  They are all true car aficionados and I love that it is something that ties his whole family all together.

My husband has a classic car, his father has three and all the other uncles and cousins, for the most part, have at least one classic car.  The first time I went to my future IL's house, my husband and I walked through the house to the garage where my FIL was.  He looked at me and said, "Its ok that you had your shoes on in the house, but you're in the garage now.  You need to take them off."  He was kidding of course, but he does keep a clean garage!

So, when we moved and were choosing which decor route to go with for my oldest son's room, we knew it would be a car theme.  One of my favorite things in the room is this:

I first saw an article a few years or so ago on BHG about making a mirror like this.  I mentally filed it away until we moved and then got started on it once we moved.  Because my husband is a hoarder collector of car related things, he had a stash of old license plates for me to go through and choose from. 

There's really nothing complicated to making this.  To make mine, I used a .5" thick piece of plywood that was 15 1/2" x 15 1/2".  I painted in red with a gallon of BM paint that I found at ACO for .50! (No kidding!)

Using a ruler, I drew a line from one corner to the next, making an  "x" on the board.  Your mirror and license plates will cover the "x", so don't worry about it showing.

I then secured a 10" square mirror that I bought at Michaels in the center with mirror mastic.  To get it straight, line up your corners so they are all touching a line. 

After that was secure, I took four license plates that were all the same size and figured out a layout that looked best.  Once I had that figured out, I used more mirror mastic to glue them to the board, framing the mirror.  Be sure to not put the mastic too close to the screw holes or it will seep out once you add pressure to the plates.  Now, all you need to do it find some heavy books to add some pressure to the plates so they stay secure while they dry.

This BHG link will show you how to add a wire to hang your mirror.  We opted to just use one of these and it is as secure as can be.

We let it sit overnight before hanging it and it was an instant hit with my son! 

Here it is again:

Here are a few more shots of my son's room so you can see how well the mirror fits in with everything else.

And whoever guesses who came up with the design for this mural and can tell me how they knew wins top honors:

Don't you love how whoever built this house decided to just randomly stick knobs and switches in the center of the wall?  Argh!!


I actually think this mirror would look great in a variety of decors.  I like it for my son's room because it will grow with him. 

Hope everyone had a great weekend and has a wonderful week ahead.
I am still plugging away on the laundry and finally primed the hutch that will go in there today. 

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Burlap Spring Wreath

Since we officially had the first day of Spring a few days ago, I thought I would attempt to do something crafty and make a Spring wreath for my front door.  While I sometimes get great ideas for crafts (or see great ideas for crafts that I want to copy may be more like it in this case), the execution of creating those things sometimes falls short for me. It requires patience.  And time.  I am low on both those things at times.  That said, this project turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself! Really, it didn't take much time at all. 

Of course, true to form, it was a bit of an adventure like most of my projects around here are!

So, first I needed a wreath, right?  It was the only thing  didn't have on hand.  One requirement for this project was that I use what I had on hand and didn't run out to buy everything.  So I headed to Michaels and bought this:

Sorry for the dark pics, it was really cloudy here yesterday.

I had this burlap on hand and knew I wanted to use it for this wreath:



The original plan was to use a colorful burlapish (real word?  probably not) ribbon I had to intertwine with this and call it a day, but once I got it out, I realized the colors screamed "Fall".  Literally.  I thought it looked a little "Fallish" and then looked at the name on the spool and it said "Autumn Harvest" or something, so yup, back to the drawing board.  Or Google, if you want to be technical.  

A little Googling for burlap wreaths found this:

Tatertots and  Jello's 2010 Spring Wreath

I loved it and I had what I needed on hand for it.  Perfect!

The above link will give you a great tutorial on how to make this wreath.  I just took my burlap and wrapped it around my wreath so it looked like this:

I hot glued the ends to keep it in place.  Then I just cut random size circles out of my burlap from some fabric I had on hand.  The burlap I had was really loosely woven, so it was hard to get a perfect circle shape, but that didn't really matter.  The fabric I had on hand worked, but in a perfect world, I would have had some cuter stuff on hand.  This project was about using what I had though, so its ok!

This is one of the fabrics I had on hand.  I originally used this fabric for curtains in my son's nursery:

I also had this beaded garland on hand from when I bought it at Pier One 8 years ago.  A store closed and they were clearancing all their inventory.  I went a little crazy when things got to 75 and 90%off and bought two of these.  I've never used them, so it probably wasn't such a great deal after all!



I just pulled some beads off and used them for the centers of my flowers.  There are so many on there, you can't even tell I touched it.

Then I just stacked the random sized circles of burlap and fabric, hot glued them together and then hot glued the beads on so it looked like this:

I was done with this part and glueing them all in place on the actual wreath when it was time for my regularly (un)scheduled mishap to occur.  I am about 90% finished when I hear my napping two year old crying.  I run up to his room and he greets me with, "I need to go to the hospital", which he sometimes randomly says ever since we visited my stepfather  one time at a hospital.  The place really made an impression on him.  I think he's just trying to get out of his nap, lay him back down and return to my wreath.  A few minutes later, he's crying again. I go up and there it is...My poor baby is sick.  I'll spare you the details, but let's just say we revisited lunch up there.

After a long break and some cleaning, I managed to get a few minutes to somewhat frantically finish the wreath in between his little stomach bouts.  I would have just put it away and finished it another day, but I was SO CLOSE to being done that I couldn't.

So, without further ado, here it is:



Notice my dog looking out on the left there...



This little bird was .01!  (Ok, so I bought two things)



Project complete!

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