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I find that a small bathroom can take a more dramatic look than the rest of the house – it doesn’t take much to make this little room unique and interesting. I changed the look recently of my downstairs toilet from magnolia (as it had been since we moved in) to a dark blue, but it needed a touch of something special!
I saw a reel on Instagram on how to make these flowers out of foam sheet, and they take about 5-10 minutes each to make and very little skill. They do mean that your fingers go very near an iron though so this is not for kids to do. And be very careful!
This, like most of my blog posts, doesn’t take a lot of skill so anyone can do this if you’re careful with an iron!
Updating a plain cheap pine mirror, to something unique and co-ordinated to your décor gives a lot of joy with not a lot of work – and it can be done in small stints in lunch breaks, or even some of it in front of the tele of an evening!
You use a hot glue gun and an iron for this, so follow the instructions, take care, and turn everything off if you need a break.
Equipment needed
- Old mirror
- Wood primer
- Acrylic paint for the mirror frame and the foam sheets (if you need to change the colour)
- Foam sheets x 6
- Hot glue gun
- Iron
- Scissors
- 5 circle templates (10mm, 20mm, 30mm, 40mm and 50mm diameter). I found 5 objects I could draw around of roughly the right size
- Pen for drawing the circles on the foam – a biro works well!
- Masking tape
- Gold spray paint
- Dixie Belle clear coat, or equivalent – suitable for a bathroom. A polyurethane varnish will also work.
Step by step guide
Step 1. If the foam sheets need to be a new colour (which is what I did to match, paint them with Acrylic paint and let them dry.
Step 2. Cut out circles from the foam in the required sizes. I made 16 flowers in 2 colours – 3 large (need 5 circles), 3 small (need 3 circles), and 10 medium (need 4 circles). This resulted in 3 x 50mm Ø, 13 x 40mm Ø, 16 x 30mm Ø, 16 x 20mm Ø, 16 x 10mm Ø in each colour
Step 3. For each circle, cut a slot about half way to the centre, to make 8 sections
Step 4. In each section of each circle, cut from the middle of the outside edge in a curve around to each side to make a petal shape.
Step 5. Gather the circles into groups for each flower, as outlined in step 2.
Step 6. Heat up the glue gun and turn on the iron.
Step 7. For each circle, gather the ‘petals’ on your fingers with the top side on the inside and place the middle section against the iron for 5 seconds. This will slightly melt the foam. Keep holding the petals together for a few seconds and then move onto the next.
Step 8. When you have enough circle that will make a flower, but a dot of hot glue in the middle of the largest circle and put the next size down on top, then repeat with the next size down, and again, until you have made the flower as planned. Use the flat end of a pencil to push the centre down and hold for 10-20 seconds for the glue to hold. You have a flower! Repeat this until you have made all the flowers.
Step 9. Now onto the mirror! Sand it down if it’s wood, or clean it with white spirit/suitable degreaser.
Step 10. Mask the mirror, so that paint doesn’t get on it (use newspaper to cover the main mirror, and tape to the edge.
Step 10. Prime with a suitable primer all over.
Step 11. Top coat 2 edges next to each other with the acrylic paint, leave to dry for 2 hours and recoat. Repeat until you have the right depth of colour
Step 12. Cover the 2 edges you have painted with newspaper.
Step 13. Following the instructions on the gold spray paint, spray the other 2 edges. Leave to dry per the instructions and spray another coat to ensure good coverage.
Step 14. When dry, paint with a clear top coat such as Dixie Belle clear coat.
Step 15, When this is dry, use the hot glue gun to put the flowers on in the arrangement you would like. You can hang the mirror straight away and smile at your handiwork!!
This makes me smile whenever I use the downstairs bathroom (too much information??!!) – we could all do with an extra smile in the day!
