DIY MIRROR MOSAIC WALL ART PIER 1 IMPORTS INSPIRED using Dollar Tree Items

What's up, glue dots? I'm Elaine, the midnight crafter, and I'm really excited about tonight's project because you see this here behind me on the

wall

. Well, years ago I bought it at Pier One Imports and I've been trying to figure out how. I was able to recreate it myself so I did and I made it all

using

Dollar Tree products so I'm really excited since the one I made is this big and that one is pretty big but you can make your own any size you want. I like it and I thought I'd start small and do it for the tutorial to make sure it worked and I have to say guys I think this is my favorite project of all time so far, I'm not 100% sure but I'm pretty sure.

I sure love it so I can't wait to show it to you. It's pretty easy to make, just a little time consuming, but amazing for all my glam girls and modern glam people. This is the diggity bomb. I'm telling you, okay? Just enough to let you know that I'd love for you to join our glue dot family by hitting the subscribe button below and if you hit the bell next to it, you'll know every time I upload great videos like this. please join us and leave me a comment, let me know what you think and best of all, share it, like it, you know so many things, I'm so bossy anyway, I can't wait to get to this so I think that. should we do Oh I almost forgot again, down in the description box there is a link you can enter to win a cute little sparkly owl keychain and I do it on the first of every month during 2019 so if you are interested in enter win... it's adorbs... so all you have to do is go down there and press that and put your email address also in the description box, it's very important to look there because if you want to recreate this project My images They don't always include everything you need because sometimes they turn into more as I go, so down there I list the

items

you'll need and there's a whole list for you, so okay, now we can move on.

So let's do this right, so I already have a little bit of a head start here because I wanted to try to make sure this project worked in the first place, but what we're going to do is take your big tray. here and you don't, I don't know if there are smaller size trays, but go ahead and get the biggest one you can find and we're going to cut this outside edge because we're just going to use the flat. part of the tray is okay so what we're going to do with this piece is cut out leaf shapes from this so decide how big or small you don't necessarily need them all to be the same size you can have different sizes and shapes slightly different so you don't necessarily have them you don't have to cut out a template or anything so this is what we're going to do and cut out a bunch of these because they're going to be the decoration for our project and try to maximize your space

using

any little extra area that you have here just like you would if you were using cookie cutters and cutting dough, you know we have to make every last cookie fit in there, so that's what We're also doing this cutting and cutting and cutting now, yeah If you're making a really large

wall

art, you can cut the leaves much larger and you won't have to cut as many if you're making smaller wall art, you'll want to make your leaves a little smaller so you can include at least several leaves in the project, okay, that cut off a lot of leaves and left all these little dicks low. pieces that are just going to be thrown away and aren't really that fucked up pieces, they're really cool looking so you could probably use them for another similar project using just the little extra cut out pieces because those are pretty fancy looking, so I don't know who knows.

I can set them aside and use them, maybe they'll go in the trash, but what we're going to do next is the fun part and for that you're going to need a little bowl of water and a bunch of different nail polishes, so I have all these colors because they're in the color scheme that I'm trying to follow, but pick whatever color scheme you want and stick with it and I'm sure many of you have seen this technique before so it's nothing new but we'll just use it and for those of you who haven't seen it, you're going to love it, it's so funny, can I? go ahead and find out I don't know, just randomly grab a few different things.

I'm going to want some dark colored leaves and I'm going to want some light colored leaves. I have to stay here waiting, my piece of parchment paper so I can set up. them about what I've done and the tweezers to use while I pull them out so good because the other day I was doing it with just my fingers and I kind of broke my nails so have your sheets by your side if you want to be able to be ready to shake your polishes and loosen the top so you can use whatever colors you want at the time and not have to take the time to undo them, so all of these nail polishes were from Dollar Tree except this one. one here I bought at Daiso but it's not like that, it can be nail polishes from anywhere and I'm going to start with some of my darker leaves, there's no reason just because I can and I have a few drops of this dark blue in there and you can see how it spreads and then maybe put a little bit of this blue there, which is also a little bit dark, just to change it up a little bit and you can see what it's doing there and then I'm just going to take your leaf and I'm going to use my pointy tweezers from the tip and I'll find a spot and stick it in there, take it out and put it on your parchment paper so you can do some of them with a nail polish. bathroom, which is good and each one will be a little bit different, which is really cool because it's a very interesting project and our leaves are already different from each other, some are fat, some are thin, some will be dark.

We'll be light like we are and the nice thing about that is we're all beautiful in our own way just like these leaves which are all different so I really love it and this is starting to dry out a little bit here so I got to make all the leaves that I can and then I'll move on to my next color so you can see when this starts to appear no, oh no, okay, look at this no, when this starts to appear no, it's time to clean that up. Polish, so I'm going to remove that little piece of mucus from there and then I'll set it aside.

You don't have to worry about the back of the sheet because it will be stuck to your board or whatever, so now that's it. What I'm going to do is take one of the scrap pieces that I have and shake it around here to pick up the rest of the floating pieces that started to dry out too much. You'll probably want to have a paper towel on hand. Also, to put them on, let me show you some of these, they are really cool! I hope I don't leave them. They're pretty clever, so they're all going to have a really unique look depending on what colors we put in, so I'm going to make my next batch here and I think I'm going to use some of this really cool stuff.

All my colors are matte, except this one which has some shimmer. I don't really know how it will turn out, but I'm open to finding out and I'll do it with a little bit of this kind of lighter, I don't know, I see a sparkling mint green, I don't know what you would call it and then maybe maybe a little bit of white in there too, all good, we get interesting and then what's good about this? Is this a place where you guys can do a double dip because it changes the color and I think this could probably be my last leaf with this batch because it's starting to get oh I just dropped my leaf there ah okay that's did it really work?

Well, let's go with some of the other colors and move up. I think I'll do one of them with a little black too. I think it'll look great, anyway. I think you guys are kind. To get an idea, I'm going to play around with this and finish my sheets and do all that and then work on Oh, get off, get off, sorry, digress, they got stuck, I mean, I'm going to finish my sheets and then Let's go. to work on the next step, which will be to start putting this bad boy together, which may be a little complicated, but I think it will also be cool.

Well, it worked fine, I just picked everything up on it. leaf and it came out pretty good, let me do this and then I'll show you what I came up with ooh, so here are all the beauties, obviously each one is a little different, a couple of things, I learned a few little tips. Just so you know, sometimes some polish, if you drop it in there too quickly, it will form a ball at the bottom. You can see some little balls in there, but it's not a big deal, they stay at the bottom, so you'll want to pour it out. your polish there pretty quickly and the less polish you put on, the faster it dries, the less leaves you get, so if you put a little bit more on there and you can layer colors, you'll get this kind of result.

Now we're going to have to be patient, which is not one of my strengths, and we're going to have to let them dry before we can move on to the next part. Alright guys, so far, so good. They're excited? I'm joining this, give me a big thumbs up and subscribe to my channel and join the glued family, so let's see what else. Oh, comment, let me know, what do you guys think? This is so great so far for the next part of this project. In fact, we're going to use these little

mirror

squares and cut them into strips now.

I think I bought them on Amazon. If I can find the link, I'll post it below. If not, Dollar Tree is occasionally happy and the

mirror

squares are a little larger, which is probably a good thing if you can't find them or don't want to use them. Another option that I potentially know before cutting this whole tray into our sheets, you can cut it. Some of these square pieces will require a little more labor if you just cut a few strips of this. In fact, before you cut them all out on the tray, you could cut a few squares off the extra piece of the tray so that's absolutely an option and you'll probably know you'll spend a

dollar

less if you feel like doing it.

These are also a great option and also make little mirror effect squares, so it's definitely an option to do a side by side comparison. For you, I wanted to show you that these are the ones you can get at Dollar Tree there for a jot and they are much bigger than the ones I got on Amazon and they are literally next to each other here and you can see the difference in the size of the squares, so it makes a big difference if you use the extra scraps or buy ahead by cutting the silver tray, you can cut any size you want to use and another potential option would be to use a glitter wrap.

I'm going to change the look of the project a little bit, but that's also another potential option, so what I decided to do is use these little ones that I got from Amazon because I think they'll work better for my project and what a little trick I discovered: first that nothing, I'm cutting my row with an exact knife and then what I'm going to use, I'm peeling off this backing here, which makes it a little difficult because then the backing is very sticky and makes it very difficult to work with, so a little trick I'm going to do is use a little bit of cornstarch and very little does the job so even what's on this lid if I just touch that and rub it on the back of the sticky surface, voila, there won't be more stickiness and it won't affect our project for later so here's my strip and now it's not sticky anymore which is great oh my gosh guys what a fool I am.

I was doing this and putting in some cornstarch. I realized that these just come apart, so instead of sitting there and cutting them and then turning them over. Oh sure, okay, sometimes it's the simplest things that elude this genius mind, so it's a lot faster anyway. And it's an easy way to do it, okie dokie, it's been a couple of hours, so let's move on to the next step because my leaves are already dry. I have them here on the side and the next thing we will do is take whatever. box art frame you have or whatever base you want to use.

I would recommend something that has a hard surface and not something that has a flexible surface like a canvas because I'm afraid things won't flex with it and you'll just take it out later so I'm using this caulk from Dollar Tree and I have a little plate transparent here that I'm mixing. Oh, give me anyway, I'm going to put a good amount of that in there because I'm going to cover the surface of my artwork here and I want to color mine a gray color to match the one I'm trying to copy. I have the artwork at home and I'm going to add some.

I have a nice good amount of this going here and I'm just going to add a little bit of black paint, which is just a drop. I can always add more as it is very difficult to make it clearer if you add too much. This is a cover of my favorite chocolate. covered almonds are Trader Joe's dark chocolate covered almonds if you haven't tried them oh you have to try them so I would say I'm using I don't know I guess like 3/4 of a tube at this point just to give you an idea idea. I'm going to do the top first and then worry about the sides, so now you're going to like to frost a cake, so first let's cut out our cookies. of our cookie dough cookie cutters with what he calls itfor our sheets and now we're frosting a cake, can you tell I like my sweetsor what if you have a cake spreader, an old cake spreader that you don't use, that might be easier, but I'm just using a stirring rod and this doesn't have to be very thick, just a thin layer to cover everything, It's not super ultra fast drying so you have some time so don't panic it's okay so I have my skim coat right there and now.

What I'm going to do is take a toothpick because I want to draw the little swirl design that I'm going to place my mirrors in, so spin it around and figure out what pattern it doesn't have to be. perfect because your mirrors are going to go there but just to give you an idea of ​​where they're going to go well I think that's it. I don't know if you guys can see the little pattern I made here. Go ahead a little bit, but now what we're going to do is take our little mirror pieces that I laid out so well and cut them out or separate them and we'll start placing them on our pattern.

Can I give you a press down, so continue here, follow your pattern and put all of this in once it starts rolling, it goes a little bit faster. I think this is what I have so far, my caulk is starting to dry so if you feel like you need a little more time do half of this at a time then the next step I'm going to do is press my sheets and Now what I'm going to do is take some of the leaves that I have. I've done it and start pressing them into place so you can cover most of the caulk that you want so press them down and keep the leaves a little spaced apart because caulk isn't exactly the prettiest thing out there and Press it well because It's starting to dry pretty quickly now, so you really want to work quickly if you have problems and it dries out.

Worst case scenario, you can always use some glue and stick it there. Now that I have most of these in place, there are a few spots that I would like to fill in, but I think it will be nice to cut some of these sheets in half to try to fit them into place and just go ahead and fit them so that it looks like it comes, you know, like it's gone off the edge now because it's drying out. I have to push hard, there may be a chance this could have come off later, but in that case.

I'm just going to glue it back on, so I'm pretty pleased with the way it looks. Now what I'm going to do is go in and press to make sure everything is firmly in place and if there are spots now, make them a little bit small. Now is a good time because it's still wet, you can level them out a little bit and press them into place and don't worry about things hanging off the edge, let's hit that up a little bit. a little bit later and then we'll paint the sides and we'll be done, so what I'm going to work on now is cutting with my exact knife some of the edges that are hanging over, now this caulking is a little bit type. almost rubbery feeling, so it's not like it cuts very smoothly and easily, as soon as I clean up these edges here, I'm going to go ahead and paint that edge gray, the same way I did with the mixture of When putting black paint on white caulk, you should add much more white paint than black paint; otherwise it will be very dark and again it doesn't take much if you are enjoying my videos. forget to give me the thumbs up and join the glue dot family by subscribing and hitting the bell so you know when I upload new videos.

I'm so excited I can't even believe this is a Dollar Tree, all the Dollar Tree

items

to make this project I think this may be one of my favorites right now so you guys don't need to watch me paint so I'll just keep going and I'll do it and then I'll show it. This is all over, hang in there.