Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

So a year and a half ago, I went here.

As cheesy and over the top as it was, I totally fell in love with it. I also came away with a renewed love of gold. Gold has been given such a bad rap over the past few years, but it's making a huge comeback lately in new color combinations, tones, and patinas. 
Don't believe me? Check out this.
That's good news for me. I've always had a ton of gold in my house simply because it's what I had on hand when I was a newlywed and I couldn't afford to start over with brushed nickel, silver, or "oil-rubbed-bronze," so I just made do with what I had and added to it a little at a time over the years.
As part of my recent random nesting phase, I've been meaning to redo my entry. It's boring and totally not dramatic. I've been coveting the oblong mirrors that have been showing up everywhere for this makeover. The problem is that most of them are psychotically expensive. This little beaut from Hobby Lobby costs $70... Meh.

And that's the cheapest one I could find anywhere. Case in point? This one from Antrhopologie costs over $300.

Yikes! It's cute, but not THAT cute.
Not gonna work for me. I'm more like a $30 and under kind of gal (I rarely spend more than that for an accent piece in my house, because I'm pretty much the cheapest person I know). 
I've been checking out all my usual thrift stores lately, but nothing's been turning up. So, I decided to make one myself. I recently stumbled upon the magic of Looking Glass paint thanks to this.  In her tutorial, she references this.

 I decided when I saw this that I MUST have an old, distressed, antique-glass mirror like these, or like this.

Mmmm... gold and scratchy.
I had a Eureka! moment and decided to combine both tutorials in a stroke of what I consider pure genius.The first thing I did was run out and find this frame at Savers, our local version of Goodwill.

I liked it because it was the right size for the space, the right shape, well built with a solid backing, and it had real glass instead of plastic. I also liked the little detailing around the edge. Up close, those knobbly bits look like little rosettes... Cute!

Cost? $12.50
I took it apart, cleaned it, and started painting the glass. Once it was painted (according to the instructions on the can), I sprayed it with my super secret glass cleaner formula. If you ask me real nice I'll tell you what it is, because it works about 7 billion times better than Windex. I kept the beads of glass cleaner super small, and only let them sit for a minute or so.
Then I took a large natural bristle brush and gently brushed the glass until streaks, scratches, and bubbles began to form.  I gently blotted off the remaining glass cleaner and let it dry. Once ready, I sprayed it with 2 more thin coats of paint so it would still be reflective. Total cost? $0 because I already had the paint, brush, and glass cleaner on hand, thanks to my Mercury Glass adventures. Oh snap!
Once the glass was ready, I moved on to the frame. Even though it was gold-toned, I didn't like the cheap plastic-y look of it. That hideous early 90's brass-tone plastic coating over the resin base wasn't going to work for me, so I primed the whole thing with rubbing alcohol, a reddish base coat, adhesive, and then I gold-leafed it. Now it was gold, but not ugly cheap gold. More like pretty, pretty, real gold.

See? Much fresher. Thanks to a handy-dandy 40%-Off coupon for Roberts, the kit and additional leafing only cost me about $15. Win!
Once it was ready, I antiqued it with a milk-chocolate colored glaze and sealed it. Then I backed it with some cute blue and red flowered scrapbook paper and reassembled it.
Here's the final results. Pretty sweet? Huh?

Total cost: $27.50
Less than half the cost of the boring black mirror from Hobby Lobby. More than 90% cheaper than the white Antrhopologie oblong mirror. Just a tiny mere fraction of the cost of the Anthropologie distressed mirror wall. Cha-ching!

 Here she is all dressed up for a big night on the town. The wreath was made with 1/2 of a $5.00 garland that I cut up, some old craft wire I had laying around, and some kitchen twine. The Love Birds on the table are a thrift store score that I purchased for about $15.00 for the pair. The bulbs potted there are a stupid Amaryllis bulb that punches out huge leaves every year but never any flowers and some paperwhites that are popping up like crazy. Can't wait to see what the whole thing looks like with those ladies in bloom.
The mirror is too reflect-y for the scratches, chips, and holes in the glass to really show up in this lighting. Perhaps I should break out the black spray paint and give the whole back a nice shot? Or just wait until it's not the middle of the night and take a better picture. I am also still debating if I should go over the frame again with a black glaze to deepen the color or not, but for now, I'm super happy with the results. And in this situation, I think the gold looks pretty hot, right?