Broken China Mirror Mosaic

One fine day, when I was bored with nothing to do, well there is always housework but that doesn’t count, I decided to go out with the husband and visit some of the local area thrift stores. There are loads of them in my area and I have never visited one.

We walked in to the first store and immediately I was drawn towards an old oval mirror in dark wood, like a magnet. It was definitely well used and when I checked the price of five dollars it was mine!

Hubby, in despair, asks what the heck I was going to do with the old mirror? I just ignored him and wandered on.

My next stop just happened to be by the old dishes that sadly lacked some of their mates. They were crying out to me, come here, come now, buy me please! If they only knew what I had in mind for them!

I spied an old chipped set with gold edging and large reddish orange flowers and lots of leave. Mine again. Now my husband was getting irritated. “What do you need dishes for? We have plenty.” Just wait and see was my response.

We got home and had my husband paint that old mirror frame white for me. I then took a few dishes, bowl, cup, and saucer and placed them in a bag and smash, threw them on the floor a few times and let them break into pieces. I opened the bag and took out the pieces and emptied out the dust and tiny porcelain particles into the garbage.

Once the paint dried, I took the broken pieces of china and placed them all around the mirror and moved them around and around until I was happy how they looked! I then used tile mastic and placed it on the back of the china, piece by piece, and placed the pieces back in their proper spaces! I went all around the mirror and did this until all pieces were glued on with the mastic. The mirror them was left to dry overnight.

The next day, I checked to be sure each piece was stuck on the wood well and when I was happy that all was well, I moved on. The next step is to choose a grout, which I had already left over from a tile job, and I had a nice “Sand” Brown color and then grouted all around the china pieces, carefully wiping off any extra grout that finds it way into the china. Once it was all grouted I had to wait again over night to dry. Once dry the mirror was done! It looked gorgeous and my husband then wanted to go out to more thrift store to see what we could find!

So if you want to make a mosaic mirror with broken bits of china just follow what I did. This is am awesome way to design and match your plates with a mirror for decorating. Or perhaps you have an old set you have saved because you loved the pattern but many pieces missing, why not make yourself something nice with them! I bet this would also make a beautiful picture frame. Hummm I have to go get busy, I can feel the itch coming back.