I have been admiring in stores, on Pinterest and Instagram driftwood mirrors for some time. But to buy one of these mirrors it would have been well over $100 and I knew I could put one together myself for much less! Not to mention it would be more meaningful to use driftwood I collected myself while on vacation.  So a couple years ago I started collecting driftwood during our summer beach vacations on Lake Michigan. Every time I would bring a piece back from a walk my husband would say we don’t need another piece of driftwood. Part of the reason he grumbled so much was the fact that our beach is 222 steps down the bluff, which means it’s 222 steps to carry the driftwood back up to the house on the bluff…:O

So I finally decided to put together my driftwood mirror a few days ago and I love the way it turned out! Here are the steps of how I put my mirror together:

 Here’s all the driftwood…looks like a lot but I used most of it.. 

I bought a 12″ mirror at the craft store

 

 I laid it out first to see if I had enough driftwood and to decide how I wanted it to look.

  

I had my husband cut a board just slightly bigger than the mirror. We left it square since the driftwood would cover it up anyway. I painted it to mimick the color of the wood. I used a light and dark gray along with tan and applied with a dry brush technique

     

I attached the mirror in the center of the board with liquid nails. This takes  a few minutes to set up so you can re-position it if needed.

  

After the mirror is attached I began to layout the driftwood with the longest pieces first. I also used a paper plate to help me keep my placement even around the outside of the mirror.  I used my hot glue gun to attach the driftwood to the wood backer board.

 

I kept gluing pieces until I had the whole board covered then began layering smaller pieces in between to hide any open spots. 

   

  

 After I finished I attached a saw tooth hanger to the back and hung it up in my family room where I get to look at it every day and remember our family trips to the beach!