Mosaic Mirror Vases | 4 Dollar Tree DIYs

You know, two of my favorite items in my house are this beautiful vase and this sparkling candle lighter. I love them because both pieces are made with this

mirror

ed

mosaic

look. They are very pretty and elegant. I had this vase in my closet that I love, but I took it out and put it in my guest bathroom because I had guests coming over and I wanted to spruce it up. Well, I was missing this in my closet and I wanted to look for another piece just like this. I went to Pier One, which is where I think I found this, it was very, very expensive, but I couldn't find it, so I was looking.

I found another similar piece, with the same effect, at Hobby Lobby, but they didn't have any larger

vases

, so I thought maybe I could do this. So I came up with my own version. I've been experimenting a lot and came up with one that looks a lot like it. Look at this, I made this one, it turned out beautiful, too shiny, elegant, it has that

mirror

finish and I used all the

dollar

tree

pieces to make this. So I'm going to show you how I created this and a few others that turned out great too. So after looking at this piece it looks like there is a layer of glass surrounding the outside of this piece that is cracked into place and then it looks like there is grout between the cracks.

So my first idea was to take a mirror, break it, hold the pieces in place and wrap it around the glass. To do this, I'm starting with a mirror that I bought from Dollar Tree and a pair of women's pant socks in black that I also bought from Dollar Tree. First I'm going to take the mirror out of the frame, turn it over and paint the back of the mirror with glue. I'm using Mod Podge and painting each area of ​​the mirror all the way to the edge. I want to cover it completely with glue, then I'll take my tights and open them up so they're flat.

And I'm going to cover the back of the mirror with the stocking fabric. I'm putting a flexible backing on the back of the mirror so it stays together when I break it. I'm wearing a stocking because I thought I could stretch it after it broke. So I just cut off enough pieces to completely cover the mirror and I'm going to take a couple of sheets of paper, put them on top and I'm going to press and twist my hands against it so that the material really sticks to the mirror. mirror. Now after a few hours when the glue was completely dry I took the mirror and put it inside a large ziplock bag and took it outside to break it with a hammer and just tapped it lightly.

You can't see what it looks like because it's too light outside, but I'll show you when I bring it inside. But you just want to touch it and not break it, but touch it so you can break as many pieces as you can. Now you'll want to put on gloves when you handle this, but this is what I have. I have a piece that is now flexible enough to bend around my glass piece. Now, first I'm going to take a large painter's brush and just remove the extra sanded glass pieces that are on top so I can start working.

Now this piece will almost wrap around my large face, but not completely, so what I'm going to do is cut pieces and leave spaces so I can completely surround this cylinder. I can cut along the crack lines or even cut across the mirror to get the correct sections to glue to my piece. To glue the pieces together I am using clear Gorilla Glue, I did not use super glue to make sure it is clear Gorilla Glue. And I'm also using some hot glue. So stick clear glue around the center and hot glue around the edges just to hold it in place while the clear glue dries.

I'm simply taking one piece at a time and gluing them in order to the glass. So I was able to cover it completely like with the 8 by 10 mirror with spaces in between and it gives it a nice little pattern. I'm going to do a couple more pieces before I grout these. To grout these pieces I am using a premixed grout that I purchased at Hobby Lobby. I start with white and sprinkle it with a little red, a little yellow and a little black to get this terracotta color to match the vase I like. I use this colorant to sprinkle on white and I also bought this colorant from Hobby Lobby.

To start grouting the pieces, I'll wipe it down with a damp sponge and then take a wooden spoon and just work the grout into the cracks in sections. After making a small section, you should take a damp cloth. I'm using a damp paper towel and wiping down the outside surface and the instructions may say do everything, let it sit for a few minutes, but you really want to start wiping. Remove the grout from the mirror as soon as possible. So I'm doing this in sections because it's going to be very difficult to remove after it starts to dry.

You'll also want to place most of the grout around the top and bottom edge to have a smooth transition from the glass to the mirrors and just smooth it out with your fingers. After grouting the piece and cleaning the surface as best you can, let the piece sit for about four hours so the grout can fully harden. Now it's time to clean the surface very well, but this is how it looks, it looks pretty close, but the pieces of course are not as small as the one on the piece that I like. To test how they look different, I also use black route on one piece and white grout on one piece.

After the grout dries, to clean the mirror surface very well, what you can use is an oil called Goo Gone. This will help not only remove the grout from the mirror, but it will also help leave fingerprints from the glue on the surface that the grout has been stuck to and you won't be able to remove them without this. So I'm just rubbing this with a Q-tip and I'm using this little spatula, but you can use a spoon and just turn it in a circular motion and scrape the residue off. After letting it sit for a while, it will loosen anything that's sticky and help remove grout and hardened glue.

So I'm just going to go around a piece and do this: I'm going to wipe it with a paper towel and then I'm going to use the Windex to wipe it off. And it will be nice and shiny. So I attached two Dollar Tree candle holders with epoxy and placed the piece on top of them. And this is what white, red and black grout looks like. Now, if you don't feel like working with glass and grout, here's another method you can try. For this, I will epoxy two pieces together to make another tall vase and use my black multi-surface metallic acrylic paint.

I am painting two coats of black on the top and bottom of the vase. I want to create an effect that looks a lot like my lighter. So I was looking for pieces that looked like glass so I wouldn't have to use glass. This is a piece of glass and what I found were sequins. I like the look of the little sequins but I want the shapes, the little irregular shapes. So I decided to use flat sequins and bought them at Hobby Lobby. I'm going to put together about four pieces. First, I'll cut out the small circle.

Then I'm going to cut it several times into pieces to get these little irregular rectangular shapes. So what I'm doing now is taking my painted vase and gluing the pieces together as if I were creating the

mosaic

. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to put some gorilla glue, the clear gorilla glue, on the sections and I'm going to spread it with these wooden sticks that you can get at any craft store. So I'm going to spread it out evenly and drop some pieces and use clean sticks to push them into place. I will push the piece on this side down into position as close to the next piece as possible and with another clean stick press it down into the glue.

And you have to try very hard so that the glue does not get on the surface. So use these clean sticks to tap the top of the surface. You can use one stick to push from one side into position and make sure the other stick is clean when you touch it on the surface of the pieces. And this will take some time, but I consider it a nice meditative project. But I was able to get that beautiful mirrored mosaic look that I liked on my lighter. Now, if you can't find the sequence you can cut out, Dollar Tree has a birthday sign and silver tinsel that you can also use to create these little mosaics.

All you have to do is cut them the same way and position them. I made one side of this vase with the Dollar Tree tinsel so you can see the difference. As you can see the shapes are very similar to my lighter piece but it is smooth and the pieces are thinner so they don't have as much dimension as this side of the sequence. Either way, I'm very happy with the result. but I'm still trying to get closer to the look of this vase. So I thought I would try it again using the same method, but instead of painting my vase black, I will paint it a light color, a color similar to this vase.

Plus, this vase is very clear, so when you put a candle in it, light comes in and you can see all the beautiful designs and pieces. So I'm going to use my metallic paint again, but this time I'll use bronze. I think it is a good combination of all the colors in the vase. Using nice, even strokes, I'm just going to apply a coat of bronze because I want the glass to still be very clear. I waited for the paint to dry completely on this vase and am now gluing the sequence pieces together the same way I did with my black painted vase.

But this time I'm going to leave a little more space between each piece because I want the candlelight to show through. And this is what it looks like next to the piece I love. And I think it's very close. I really like it a lot. And illuminated it shines just as beautiful. Now next time I can try cutting the pieces a little more square, more irregular, these have sharp edges and I can also try mixing the color that is close to the grout on this piece, it's a lighter color and more terracotta and I'll see how is left over. outside.

But it's beautiful, I love it, it looks even better in person. Now on my Instagram you guys had some suggestions while I was making this that you mentioned using, so I tried using the CDs which were very difficult to cut, that's why I chose this sequence. But Ida from Design on the Dollar said she was trying this look with German crystal glitter. I couldn't find German glass glitter in craft stores, I think you had to order it online, but I found a video that showed how to make something that looks like German glass glitter and I'll leave a link to that. .

But she used Christmas bulbs and I only had one Christmas bulb, so I'm going to use this one and put it in a plastic bag and use a hammer to break it into small pieces. The German glass glitter has larger irregular shaped pieces and I couldn't find them but I found this one at the store and it has smaller pieces but I'm going to mix them into my Christmas bubble mix and it's called silver and gold flakes. So I have my mix and once again I'm going to start with a lightly painted bronze base and cover sections of it with Mod Podge and put a lot of glue on the surface.

Now I'm going to hold the vase over the bowl and sprinkle the mixture all over the area I glued. And I'm going to use my craft stick just to make sure there are no overlapping pieces. I want the big flakes to show through, so I'll make sure to move any of them that overlap the glue so they spread evenly. . So I'm going to do this around the entire piece and after it's completely dry, this is what it looks like. As you can see the texture is very different compared to the other piece but it is still very beautiful and this is how it looks illuminated.

Ida from Design on a Dollar, who suggested this, already has her pieces and her video. So I'll leave a link so you can see what real German glass shine looks like. They looked beautiful on her pieces, now you have about four methods you can use to create beautiful mirror mosaic

vases

. But I'm going to keep experimenting and try to find this exact look, so if you know exactly how it was created, write me a note or leave me a comment so we can create more beautiful vases. You can now get our metallic acrylic craft paint and eight bright colors available on amazon.com, follow me on Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and Snapchat on Your House A Home and Your House A Home TV for daily tips on home, food and the garden.