That's right. Like the little diddy that resulted in the post you're about to read. You see, back when I was preparing for the Halloween party, I had a little moment when I got carried away with my old pal, hot glue gun. I had purchased this $2 felt Happy Halloween sign and shortly before the party I realized I hadn't hung it. I gave the room a quick survey and determined it would look great on the mirror above my dinning room buffet.
Oh, but how to hang it? Tape? Ack. Let's get a little more permanent why don't we? Well let me show you why tape would have been the rationale, intelligent choice, i.e. the one I did not make.
You see those black spots? Try putting your sunglasses on and look above my blinding flash. Yup, that's where I ripped the paint right off. After Halloween had passed, I started taking down my decor, and I attempted to gingerly peel the sign off. That's when I heard an unfortunate sound and gasped. With my mouth hanging open and my heart beating ever so quickly, I panicked and went all in on the old "rip the band aid" approach. A hot second later I had not one, but three big spots where the paint was gone. Oooh, not good.
So, I ignored it until just before Christmas when I hung something over it. Hiding always works. Well, until that came down and by then, my hubby finally noticed. It went something like ... la di da, walking past the dinning room ... "whoa, what the hell happened to the mirror?!?" Then I had to explain I had an unconscionable moment of passion with my hot glue gun and it hadn't turned out so well. (And oh, it happened two months ago Captain Observant.) In response I got an, "ohhh, honey"... followed by a pitiful head shake as he left the room.
Once the cat was officially out of the bag I determined it was indeed time to attempt to remedy this "situation." I headed to Michael's Craft Store and poked around a few aisles with paint when I came across this. I picked up a cheapy sponge brush and brought it home.
Note I do not think these sponge brushes are good for much of anything other than being cheap. But some of the sponges or related things were pretty pricey and I wasn't feeling terribly confident in what I was doing anyhow. So I just went with it and the paint: total $6.
I risked a hernia pulling the mirror off the wall and shuffled over to my counter. I laid the mirror down, opened the can up and gave it a whirl. A couple strokes in and this is what it looked like.
Yikes! My heart started racing again. I had one foot aimed toward the sink ready to run for some water and try to frantically remove it, and the other stayed in the direction of the mirror just stunned by how atrocious this was looking. After three seconds that seemed like an hour in my head, I decided I really didn't have a better option.
Even if I could remove the paint, I was left with three nice size black marks that were noticeable enough my husband spotted them. And yes, that's saying something. So, I drew a deep breath and moved forward. Here's what it looked like next.
Are you kidding me??? Not good. In fact, REALLY bad. At this point I set down my $0.50 sponge brush so I could rub my temples and run my fingers through my hair, trying to feel for any new gray hairs that may have sprouted sometime after this project began. Then I resorted to some whimpering and shallow breathing before convincing myself I still had no other option. So I whipped out a few of my favorite cuss words and proceeded.
I figured my best bet was to get a few layers in and see what it looked like then. And since the paint was looking like faux silver anyhow, I decided to try to make some intentional-looking brush marks since it wasn't going to have a smooth finish.
To do so, I painted the entire mirror using horizontal brush strokes. Then I waited about five minutes for it to begin to dry before making strokes in the opposite direction. The effect was actually looking right, it just wasn't covering very well. But this time I decided patience was in my best interest and after four coats using this same approach, everything was covered and it was looking much better.
It's certainly not perfect and the color is a bit brighter than it was before. That said, it sure looks better than it did a few days earlier. While I still see some things that aren't quite right, I don't think anyone else would really notice. So for now, the mirror is back in it's old home and me and my hot glue gun are taking a break from each other. We just need a little distance and then we can talk again.
