I have this lovely mirror that was given to me from Bangladesh. It is quite unique, with these crazy fish carved into the wood. I love it apart from the colour, so I gave it a makeover to suit the style of my pop-art apartment. Here is the before:

1) First I lay some newspaper onto a table, and then some masking tape and newspaper around the mirror edge:

2) I decided I wanted a pale grey background to the frame, so used some left-over black and white emulsion paint from my ‘Pop Art Letters‘ project to create the shade of grey I wanted. I used an old ramekin dish to mix the paint it (it’s always worth keeping these ramekin dishes which come with desserts such as GU).

3) I then painted the whole frame grey, including the inside and outside edges. Trickier than it looks, as there were lots of nooks and crannies where the fish were attached to the base.

4) I left the frame to dry for a day. The next day I got my left-over pink emulsion paint and painted pink outlines to the fish. This brought out the artist in me, as I wanted it to have a hand-crafted unique feel. The light grey base really made the pink stand out.

5) After the paint had dried, I took off the masking tape and newspaper. The masking tape actually did not come off cleanly, so I do recommend buying a good quality masking tape to avoid this issue.

And here is the finished mirror, now hanging proudly above our shoe rack in the hallway.

I hope I’ve inspired you to have a go. If you see any mirrors or frames in charity shops, these are ideal for this sort of makeover 🙂