Mirror with your own hands

It is not difficult to buy a mirror nowadays. The goods are not scarce and available to everyone. In addition, you can choose this piece of interior for your taste and color. But if your fantasy requires new experiments, then why not make a mirror yourself. This is a new knowledge, and pride in their work. Just before you make a mirror with your own hands, stock up with rubber gloves and remember the school chemistry course, in particular - doing silvering of mirror surfaces.

Complex silvering

To create a mirror this method requires a large set of tools:

• piece of glass;
• distilled water;
• glucose;
• filter paper;
• is a nitric acid;
• silver nitrate;
• ammonia;
• detergent;
• plasticine;
• caustic soda.

To properly manufacture a mirror yourself, follow the instructions of the master class carefully. To protect the skin of hands, put on gloves, for eyes - glasses and get to work.

1. Wash the prepared piece of glass with a detergent and remove as much as possible grease and other tiny particles from its surface. You should choose a smooth glass, without bubbles.
2. Wipe the surface, and dry it better with a hairdryer. Then, along the edge of the glass, create even and uniform edges of plasticine 3 cm high.
3. Avoid touching the surface of the glass and leaving no traces of grease on it.
4. Then prepare the working solutions. Use only chemically pure substances. For the first solution, mix 11 g of silver nitrate with distilled water( 210 g).The second solution is sodium hydroxide( 8 g) and 210 g of distilled water. In the third solution, connect 210 g of distilled water and 11 g of glucose in pure form.
5. If there is no chemical glassware, then use ordinary glassware. Pour the first solution into the glass. Then pipet add ammonia to the glass and stir the solution vigorously. First it will grow cloudy. Add ammonia by drop, until the sediment completely disappears. When the solution became clear, add 4 drops of silver nitrate. The liquid after this should be slightly clouded and get a yellowish shade.
6. To the resulting substance pour the second prepared solution with caustic soda. Stir constantly. A precipitate will be obtained, which must be dissolved, adding a few drops of ammonia. The result is a yellow-brown solution, which is filtered through a filter paper.
7. Next, you need to take the third prepared solution with glucose and pour it on the glass surface. Gently spread the surface.
8. Pour liquid with silver nitrate onto the surface, where it will mix with the glucose solution and change its color to black. Leave the future mirror in this state for 10 minutes.
9. Then, gently drain all contents from the glass surface, rinse with distilled water and dry.
10. Boots from plasticine clean. From the side where the silver layer is applied several layers of black paint. The mirror is ready.

External silvering of glass

Thanks to silvering this method produces a smooth and durable surface of the mirror. In order to get to work, rinse the glass in warm water and dry it.

Then follow the instructions:

1. Clean the dry surface of the glass with a solution of caustic potassium. After that, wipe the glass with a solution of tin tetrochloride( 1%) and immerse it in distilled water.
2. Remove from the water and dry the glass. Immediately after this, pour on its surface a substance for silvering.
3. To prepare a solution for silvering, it is necessary to connect 300 g of distilled water with 5 g of silver nitrate. Then, with vigorous shaking, add a few drops of ammonia solution. When the substance becomes transparent, add to it 4 more drops of silver nitrate. The substance becomes cloudy. To him pour the caustic soda, the color of the solution will become coffee. Again light it with ammonia. Stir everything and add distilled water so that 1 liter is obtained.
4. The glass will darken first. Then, when a dark precipitate( silver) falls, it will lighten up.
5. There are times when dark marks remain on the surface. They must be removed with double-tin. After that, pour silver solution onto the surface of the glass again.
6. After 10 minutes, gently drain the liquid from the surface and pour one more layer of the mixture.
7. After 20 minutes, flush the surface with water. To all the silver layers are firmly entrenched, the glass should be placed in the oven and left for 2 hours at a temperature of 130 degrees.
8. Dry the dried mirror with a few layers of paint on the back.
9. The front side of the mirror is wiped with a gauze swab with hydrochloric acid. The mirror is ready.

On how to make a solution for silvering mirrors with your own hands you can see in detail on the video.

Decor mirrors

To complete the image of your home mirror, you need to decorate it. It can be a stylish frame or braid around the edge of the mirror. You can apply the technique of decoupage, apply patterns through the stencil, decorate the mirror with all sorts of small details.

Decor mirrors from macaroni

Original and non-standard solution - decorate the mirror with pasta. The usual edible "shells" look harmonious and are able to give the mirror a completely unusual and creative appearance.

Before decorating, stock up with figured pasta, brush, glue and any paint. Also plan on paper an approximate future pattern on the mirror.

1. Spread the pasta on the table in the form of a future frame.
2. Wash the brush in the glue and apply to the pasta. Carefully glue them so that the glue is not smeared on the mirror.
3. When pasting the last macaroni, allow the composition to dry. Then coat the frame with paint. To prevent paint from getting on the mirror surface, cover it with paper.

Wait until the frame dries and attach the mirror to any suitable place.

Decor of the round mirror

If you can make a round mirror, you can decorate it in the form of the sun. We suggest using bamboo skewers as beams. Get also a ring from brass on the diameter of your mirror.

1. First of all, on paper, draw a sketch of the future framework. Make a circle of 24 equal sections. Inside a large circle draw a smaller circle, having deviated from the edge by 3 cm. This sketch must be transferred to a cardboard pattern that corresponds to the diameter of the mirror.
2. Place the bamboo sticks into 4 pieces, each with 24 sticks. So, in the end you should get 96 rays.
3. Keep the rays from the first part in this form( 30 cm each).And the remaining sticks of 2, 3 and 4 pieces shorten to 8, 11, and 14 cm.
4. Proceed to gluing the sticks, for this use a glue gun. First, stick long lines( 24 pieces) on the cardboard surface clearly along the lines.
5. Stick the shortest sticks from the border of the inner circle. Place these sticks on the right side of each second long ray.
6. Use the same principle to glue sticks from the third and fourth parts.
7. When everything is glued, allow the beams to dry out and then paint them with a golden hue.
8. Next, take your mirror and glue it to a cardboard with already fixed rays. Then fix the ring of brass.
9. Mirror with beams ready. On the back side, attach the fixture to the wall.

Stylish mirror frame

To create your home mirror mirror, use the following tools:

• acrylic paints;
• wax;
• stencil with any pattern;
• varnish, glue;
• silver or gold plated sheets( potal).

Manufacturing process:

To make the frame for your mirror more original, try using a stencil with an unusual pattern. Conditionally define the borders of the frame near the mirror and paint it in any color.

1. On the painted frame, apply the prepared stencil and paint in golden color.
2. Leave the mirror for a while to dry well. Then selectively apply a special glue for the gilded sheets( potali) on the pattern.
3. Put the mirror back on for half an hour.
4. Apply a bit of glue on the slightly sticky adhesive. Smooth it with a brush and fix it in this way.
5. The next step is the processing of the edges of the mirror with stationery wax for gilding. It dries very quickly and gives the surface a trendy effect under the old days.
6. When decorating is complete, secure all layers with a protective varnish. In this case, it is better to use acrylic lacquer.