Don't junk it ... use it
From orange crate to bathroom mirror
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Your support makes all the difference.This elegantly framed bathroom mirror was made out of an inelegantly unframed mirror (you can even use a broken one) and an orange crate. Here's how to do it.
Ingredients: one simple, unadorned mirror, one discarded wooden crate, a pair of pliers, a saw (or even a Stanley knife), an electric drill and a tube of glue. String is optional.
Stage One: Destruction.
This is the most enjoyable part of the operation. Taking the pliers, you proceed to dismember the crate into its constituent parts. You will be left with a couple of squarish pieces of wood (which formed the ends of the crate), a pile of slats (which went along the sides), several pieces of firewood and assorted mangled bits of metal and clips which held everything together.
Stage Two: Assembly.
Take one of the end-pieces of wood to form the back of the mirror. Lay the mirror on it and frame with a square formed by the slats to measure off the size of the finished object. Mark the edges of the frame and cut the backing square down to the right size. Glue the mirror centrally on to the backing wood. Cut and glue pieces of wood to fill in the gaps around the edges of the mirror. (This last stage is particularly useful if the whole operation is designed to make a small mirror out of a broken piece from a larger one.) To complete the basic mirror, cut the four sides of the frame (with neatly dove-tailed corners) from more slats of wood. These will cover any broken edges on the mirror to leave only a neat square visible underneath. Glue in place and clamp together or leave under a heavy book.
Stage Three: Decoration
By drilling holes through the wood (taking care to avoid any mirror lurking underneath), you may thread the object either with string or with the bits of metal salvaged from the original crate. Using the latter creates the impression of an object sewn together with wire by true artisans rather than glued by an amateur.
Bawn O'Beirne-Ranelagh
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