Harvinaisen Kaunis Elämä: Altered Mirror Frame for Finnabair and Re•design with Prima

Hi darlings,

I promised to write a blogpost about my Facebook livestream for Finnabair and Re•Design with Prima.

During the livestream, I turned an old mirror frame found from a drift store into a pink girlie room décor piece, using Re•Design with Prima décor moulds and Finnabair mixed media products – you’ll find the full list of materials at the end of this post.

The size of the mirror frame is 27cm x 31 cm (10.6” x 12.2”), perfect size for a little girl’s room, and underneath its dull, dark, metal silver colour was a beautifully intricate pattern that I thought would echo beautifully the Re•Design bird moulds and cherry or apple blossom.

PRIMING & MOULDS

First, I took the mirror out to protect it from any splashes. Then I primed the frame twice, with Finnabair Heavy Gesso, so that I could be sure I had an even base easy to work with.

I had made the mould motives the day before, using Re•Design with Prima Modeling Material, air dry clay and let them dry overnight. After priming the frame with gesso, I attached the birds, flowers, and branches to the frame using Heavy Body Gel, and primed the with gesso. I also added some Art Pebbles to imitate morning dew drops and attached them with Heavy Body Gel.

TEXTURE PASTE

I wanted some dimensional effect for the frame, so I mixed some White Sand Texture Paste and Art Stones and applied the paste to the frame with a palette knife not much; just here and there.

PAINTING WITH ACRYLICS

I wanted the frame to be a soft pink, nothing too sweet or cute, but only lightest pink with some depth and contrast, so I mixed Impastos Snow White, Boudoir Pink, and Dusty Rose and for shadowing and contrast, added just a hint of Dark Chocolate and Pitch Black to the mix.

After the Impasto paint layer, I added a hint of Liquid Acrylics Titanium White and Nude for the moulds and to highlight some parts of the frame. The frame looked just a bit too plain and sweet for my liking, as I wanted something not too cute. I made a paint mix using Liquid Acrylics Purple, Ink Black, and Burn Sienna, and added a teeny tiny brush strokes here and there and sprayed some water to make them spread and blend to the frame naturally, filling the crevices and nooks, and then wiped most off with baby wipes. It didn’t take much, just this final addition of a trace of darker shade to get some character to the frame.