Turning a New Leaf with MirrorMate & Winner!

Happy Monday!  I hope you all had a fabulous weekend!  Chris gave me some much needed time to work on projects this weekend, which was amazing and I feel like I got so much done.  And I even tried a new and super easy recipe for whole wheat pizza crust that I found on pinterest.  It was yummy a little healthier as far as pizza goes!  The kids made their own mini pizzas, and Chris and I made a larger one.  I love trying new things I find on pinterest!

Today, Sarah and I start moving into our space at Wild Rose and we are SO excited!

Anyhow, I want to share one of my weekend projects with you today.
I was beyond thrilled when Amy from Beach Chic asked me if I would like to review a MirrorMate frame for our home!  The only hard part was choosing which mirror as all 3 of our vanity areas have builder grade mirrors.
I could choose the guest bath....

Or the master vanity area....(this picture is from move-in week- the boxes are all gone! )

Or the kids vanity area....

So many ugly bathrooms, so many builder grade mirrors, but I had to choose one.  Well, since I hope to work on the guest bath this year, I thought I would start there!  It also is the bathroom on the main floor that most visitors see, so I thought it would benefit the most.

I ordered the Soho in the unfinished as I knew I wanted to paint it or finish it somehow.

I wasn't sure yet how I wanted to paint it... black?  gray?  aqua?  Then inspiration hit via a blog.   I KNOW I saw someone silver leaf a frame and I can NOT for the life of me remember who did it or where the post is, so PLEASE if you know tell me so I can link back!  Anyhow, I decided to silver leaf the frame.  Before that though, I had to put it all together as it came in 4 separate pieces and the hardware and glue to assemble it.
Assembling it was extremely easy and my corners all lined up beautifully.  Once it was assembled and the glue was dry (I waited 1 hour),  it was ready for the the finishing process.  There are several great tutorials out there for leafing such as this one from My Champagne Taste, but I found I sort of vaguely followed it while also making up my own as I went along.

I started by painting the frame with Rustoleum's glossy black oil based paint.  This is an important step as if there are any gaps, this is the color that will show through and black works best with silver.  One coat was enough though as it doesn't need to be perfect since it will get covered.

 I let the paint dry overnight, about 18 hours, and then I sprayed it with a special spray adhesive  (I purchased mine from Michael's).  Most tutorials said to wait 45 minutes to apply the leaf, but my can said wait two minutes, so I trusted my can and got to work after just a short time.  I went around, piece by piece, adding the leaf, using the wax paper to hold and press in place.  Then, most tutorials suggest using a soft brush to go over it.  I tried that but found that my fingers worked better, so I brushed gently with my fingers, and then also filled in any gaps by picking up little scraps and rubbing onto the gals with my fingers.  Here are a couple pictures during the process...

I made it around the entire mirror with one sheet to spare, after frantically calling Chris who had been out running errands and begging him to stop and get me one more package as I was sure I would run out.  Oops.  I will be returning that to Michael's.  Once it was all in place I did use the brush just to free it of any little scraps before I sealed it.  Then I sprayed it with 3 coats of Mona Lisa Metal Leaf Sealer (again, I got mine at Michael's).  Then I allowed it to dry.

Then it was time to follow my MirrorMate hanging instructions, which were super easy!  You do need one person to help while you hold the frame in place, but my husband was happy to help me out and it took all of 5 minutes.  Here it is hanging now.... Ooooh Aaaah... imagine the rest of the bathroom is as glamorous as the mirror!

I absolutely LOVE it!  Hopefully I will get to work in this bathroom soon so the rest of it looks as awesome as my MirrorMate frame!

I also was very happy about my silver leafing experience and now feel more ready to tackle my nightstands which I plan to gold leaf!

Please note that all opinions are mine and mine alone.  And I happen to think the frame is AWESOME.

Also, the winners of the Welcome Home E-books are....

Korrie from Red Hen Home & Deb from Twice Nice!  Ladies- shoot me an email! :)

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