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Coastal cool


Craft with Resene, from the Australian Women's Weekly

Transform a simple mirror into a modern piece of art with a wonderful coastal vibe.

Driftwood mirror - a modern art project
Wall in Resene Bismark, table top in Resene Grey Seal

What you'll need: Selection of driftwood or wood decor branches – in various thicknesses, hand saw, sandpaper and block or small electric hand sander (like black and decker mouse), Resene White paint, paintbrush, kaisercraft medium round mirror – or similar, hot glue gun and glue, low glass jar, natural twine.

Instructions

  1. Cut pieces of wood, using a hand saw, into a variety of 10-15cm lengths. You want a good range of lengths and thicknesses.

  2. Thoroughly sand wood using sandpaper with a sanding block or an electric hand sander. Remove all splinters and rough edges. Ideally you want rounded ends on all your pieces of wood.

  3. Cover your work area with newspaper or similar and paint each piece of wood with Resene White paint. A couple of testpots will be enough. I only applied one coat as I wanted a whitewash effect. This gives the project a cool coastal beach vibe.

  4. While the driftwood is drying, give your mirror frame a coat of Resene White paint as well. Make sure you coat all the outer and inner edges so none of the original frame colour is visible.

Mirror and driftwood
Assembling the parts
Glueing the driftwood to the mirror
Assembling the base section
  1. Once the mirror and pieces of wood are dry, you can start roughly placing the wood around the frame of the mirror – this will give you a good idea of how the lengths look. You want a balanced look, so avoid grouping together too many of the same length. When you’re happy with the arrangement, glue the wood in place. Make sure your glue gun is nice and hot – the hotter the glue, the better the adhesion. Don’t skimp on the glue either. You’ll want these to remain firmly in place over a long period of time. It’s a good idea to place a little glue along the sides of wood that touch each other too. When all your main pieces are in place, glue smaller, thinner pieces in between to fill any gaps and spaces that have appeared.

  2. To make a matching vase, use a jar that is shorter than, or the same height as the shortest pieces of driftwood. You want the wood to be even along the bottom edge of the jar, but to have alternating heights standing above the top of the jar. Glue wood all the way around your jar. While glueing in place, take care not to knock them out of place. Hot glue will stick to glass but, once dry, it can be removed relatively easily, which is why it is a good idea to bind the pieces on with twine. Wind the twine around the driftwood multiple times and tie with a bow. The twine acts as a great brace to hold the wood in place, as well as adding to the coastal look and feel.

Marsha Smith, Craft Editor. April 2019

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Projects from the Australian Women's Weekly
View more project ideas from The Australian Women's Weekly magazine in the Resene weekend craft projects section.

Australian Women's Weekly | All craft projects

 

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