Easy Mirror Frame

I’ve had some mirrors for a while, okay maybe a year or 18 months? My friend Cathy gave me three of them—they came out of this repurposed medicine cabinet into a  pegboard craft station.  She gave them to me with the condition that I got to keep the two smaller ones for myself if I made her a frame for the larger one. Sometimes I tend to procrastinate about the smaller projects.

Then I saw a fabulous tutorial for an easy frame from my friend Jamie at That’s My Letter. That was a light bulb moment for me. I don’t know why, but for some reason, “attaching” the mirror without some sort of adhesive on a backing had me stumped.

I usually just sort of wing it after reading a tutorial, or looking at pictures, but I wanted to make sure I got this right. I printed out a collage of the pertinent photos from Jaime’s tutorial.

Of course I had to cut my boards differently because my mirror was a different size than hers. I didn’t have any 1×2’s, so I ripped some 1×4’s down to a smaller size. Although I think my boards are a little wider than Jaime’s were.

You can see that little line I drew. It’s to help me wrap my brain around how to drill the pocket hole.

I swapped out the regular blue K-4 insert for the smaller Micro Jig insert so I could use smaller screws. You can see from this picture how I drilled on an angle by placing the board on the slanted end. I could say I’m using laymen’s terms so you can understand me, but who are we kidding? I don’t know the technical terms to use.

You will notice I didn’t drill on the line, that wasn’t my intent. I use lines solely to help me know on which board to drill.

I used a Kreg Face clamp to hold the joint together while I secured the screw.

You can see the frame (and the mirror) in the picture. This is only the first step for the easy mirror frame. This next step is where the magic happens.

Jaime’s brilliant tip was to use some 1/4” plywood to give a small “lip” on the front of the frame to give it great detail. I measured and cut more boards to make the outer frame. I secured it with wood glue and . . .

. . . my Ryobi nail gun from Home Depot.

Voila! Here is the finished easy mirror frame!  See how nice the small lip on the front side looks?

I painted it black during my Finish Max paint marathon.

Jaime used some decorative mirror clips, but I decided to order by bulk from Amazon. I ordered 1/4’ clips, but it ended up being too much clearance, so I used some double sided foam tape to make up the difference between the clip and the back of the mirror. I have since ordered some 1/8” clips on Amazon to keep on hand for other projects.

I hung it on the fence to take a picture. It’s soooo difficult to take a picture of a mirror!  This framed mirror was so quick and easy!  I get to check a project off my to-do list!

So, go take a look at Jaime’s mirror, she didn’t paint her frame. Thank you Jaime for inspiring me to finally get off my duff and get this project completed!

Are YOU inspired to do something similar?  I have a few more projects that will be using this easy frame method.

gail