The kids and I love heading to the beach to go scavenging, and always bring home a bag full of beach treasure. Find out how we turned our floatsome finds into this painted driftwood mirror.
The other day we took the opportunity to head out to the beach while the winter sun was shining to collect some driftwood. I have been thinking about making a driftwood mirror for a while. And the thin, little pieces of driftwood the kids were collecting would be perfect for what I had in mind.
I finally spotted a circle mirror for sale at my local Emporium and jumped at the opportunity to create a painted driftwood mirror.
After gathering some inspiration from Pinterest I found a couple of painted driftwood mirrors I love the looks of.
This style I landed on is a simple, but effective craft to do as a team with younger children, or one your older children can do by themselves.
These mirrors would look great in any kid’s room. But I really think this craft lends itself to teens and tweens, as the organic shapes and styling would add some really cool pop to their room.
When you are out searching for your driftwood, it is a good idea to look for short to medium length pieces. If your driftwood is a little long, you can always snap them. Look for thinner pieces, which will be much lighter and more likely to stick. But you also want an assortment of different shapes and sizes. Also, the lighter coloured driftwood is better for good paint coverage.
For my colour palette, I headed over to the Resene Instagram feed and loved the flower colour palette mixed with the rabbit palette. I changed up the blue to Niagara and added Go Go Go which is a sparkly green.
Once I had my colours picked out, I roughly arranged all the sticks around the mirror to see how many I would need and which pieces would make the cut.
I used about 38 short to medium length pieces of driftwood. After I had selected my chosen pieces I set out making the mirror.
How to make a painted driftwood mirror
You will need
Driftwood (assorted shapes and sizes)
A small circle mirror
Small paint brushes
Resene test pot paints in Scrumptious, Bright Spark, Niagara, Go Go Go, Quarter Moonbeam and Tangerine
Masking tape
Araldite craft glue, or an equally strong resin adhesive
Cotton bud, tooth pick or anything that can make small dots
What to do
1. Select your chosen driftwood sticks by laying them out around your mirror to see which ones work well. You’ll need to play around a bit to see which ones sit nice and flat, and which pieces work well next to each other.
2. Randomly select around a quarter of the sticks to create different masking tape patterns on.
3. Now start painting. First I painted all my taped off pattern pieces. Then I selected a couple of pieces and painted the whole stick just one colour.
4. Finally, I selected about another quarter of the sticks and painted the gradient change you can see in the picture above. To achieve the look in the picture you simply paint the ends in one colour (in this case Resene Niagara) then, while your paint is still wet, add a second colour in the middle (in this case Resene Scrumptious). Now starting from the middle, lightly brush the middle colour into the end colours (pink into the blue).
5. Once you have finished the above, about a quarter of the sticks will be left unpainted, wait until they’re dry then add some detail. To add the detailing I used a toothpick and randomly added some Quarter Moonbeam dots to the driftwood.
7. Once everything is dry, it’s time to glue all your pieces to the mirror. You’ll want to glue your driftwood sticks to the mirror, and to each other, as you make your way around the mirror. Take your time with this part, and make sure it’s all well glued together. Leave the mirror to dry for at least 24 hours before picking it up and fixing to the wall.
For another great driftwood craft idea, check out our DIY jewellery hanger. And for 100s more crafting ideas check out our Teens: Creative arts and crafts section.
