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Magazine Page Mirror Frame

starburst mirror

I got this idea from Jason, of Rag & Bone, who made a starburst frame/wreath from rolled paper.

The paper tubes remind me of those beads made by rolling up paper triangles.

After I had rolled up a bunch of magazine pages I realized that they would make something too large for any space I had. Magazine pages rolled on the diagonal create a tube about 11" long. That's means your wreath, or frame, or whatever you want to call it, would be more than two feet across. Let's see....no.

I ended up whacking my tubes in half. I suggest starting smaller to begin with!

I think Jason anchored his paper rolls to a wire wreath frame. Well, I didn't have a wire wreath frame, and I wanted something in the center, so I found a little mirror to attach the tubes to. (I wish I had bought a wire frame, but more on that later.)

How to make the paper tubes

Decide on a color scheme and tear pages from magazines.

Cut squares from the magazine pages. If you cut a magazine page into four squares (there will be a strip left over), each tube will be about 5 1/2" long.

starburst mirror

Specifically, cut your squares with your chosen color on two adjacent edges of the page, as that is what will show. If your page has a frame-like outer border you get a candy stripe! (Time Magazine covers make candy cane striped tubes.)

starburst mirror

Flip a square wrong side up.

starburst mirror

Turn the square on the diamond with the point where the two "best" colored sides meet (marked with an X) furthest from you.

Rub a glue stick on the point furthest from you (X marks the spot), and along the two sides that meet at that point. Also run a stripe of glue somewhere between the right and left points (horizontally). You don't have to be too exact about this.

starburst mirror

Roll the paper around a knitting needles or dowel or whatever you have. Start with the point closest to you and roll tightly toward the far (glued) point.

starburst mirror

As you roll the "best" edges will wind down the tube toward the center.

starburst mirror

How to make a frame for a mirror

Arrange the tubes in a pleasing manner around the mirror.

(The mirror I used was 4.25" in diameter, which took 42 paper tubes.)

Attach the tip of each paper tube to the mirror with a glue dot. Start by attaching four tubes: top, bottom, left, and right. Then fill in the quadrants.

starburst mirror

I wired the tubes to each other.

Here's how I did it.

starburst mirror

Cut a long piece of thin wire and fold it in half. Loop the fold of the wire around any tube and give the two wires a twist.

Slide one of the wires under the next tube, and the other wire over the top of that tube. Twist together on the other side of that tube. Continue around the frame, making a closed loop around each tube. Be careful to keep the tubes evenly spaced as you work.

Here's where I realized why you might want to get a wreath frame. It would have been much easier to have a firm base to attach the tubes to.

If you had a wreath frame you would attach your wire to the frame, loop up over a tube, twist around the frame, up over the next tube and so forth around the frame.

Add a hanging loop and you're done.

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