Broken Mirror to Painting Save

What do you do with a FOUR FOOT wide cracked mirror? Well, I know what I'd do and then I did it.
I saved this totally cool cracked mirror in its AWESOME frame with spray paint,
tissue paper, Mod Podge, craft paint and clear sealer.

Read on to learn the details.
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I started out with a beautifully framed mirror but ended up with this painting. How in the world did that happen?

It started out as a $7 Goodwill find with a gorgeous frame and a loose mirror.
 Four foot long and two and a half feet wide, it was perfect for our master bedroom,
right above the bed! Loose mirror? No problem!
 We tried to tighten it up. On the last turn of the last screw, it broke.
 Man, I nearly cried I heard that crack!

What to do? The frame was still good. Why not turn it into a painting instead?
 Can't fix the mirror so I figured why not cover it up?

I turned to my tried and true method for covering up and adding texture.....crumpled tissue paper and mod podge! I taped the crack on front and back with clear packing tape.

Then I spray painted the frame with Oil Rubbed Bronze but I thought it was too Goth looking,
so I high lighted it with an over spray of nice Leather Brown.
 Sweet!
 See how the tissue has dried to a nice pearly opaque textured finish?


Time to paint!

 I knew I wanted something as a vivid blue focal point, so I began layering shades
 of blue, lavender, teal, purple and black around a white circle. There is also a
bit of pink and dark green in there. The crumpled tissue really
grabbed the paint and gave this a nice interesting texture.
 I knew I wanted a branch with a nest and some eggs and
here is how it ended up.

I like it!

 I even used my favorite new paint tool, a Deco Color paint pen, to add some of the finer details.
 The Welding Man likes it too. And you know what?
 If I get tired of this I can always repaint it as something else.
 I'm adaptable that way.

Here's a close up of the nest with four eggs since we have four kids. Sure, they're all grown and flown now but since we've moved we all live in the same town, how cool is that? We see them all so often that our empty nest isn't really empty after all!

Ah, the carefully staged bedroom photo! What you can't see is the rocking chair on my side piled with clean laundry and the pile 0' shirts on The Welding Man's side of the bed. Also brought in some couch pillows since I haven't made more for my bed. But they're on the list!

So in the case of this cracked mirror with the fabulous frame,
it wasn't really a disaster. Gotta love that.