Bad Luck?

Well, you know how when you break a mirror there is seven years bad luck to come? Does this apply when you intentionally smash mirror to make something else?

Yesterday I woke up with an idea floating around that saw me start a project even before my first coffee had kicked in! Several months ago I bought a cheap wall mirror that fell of the wall and broke, (just a top section) rather than toss it I hung onto it just knowing something would come to me.

Anyway I got out the tile adhesive and the grout and happily smash the mirror into many pieces and arranged them in the shape of a head on the side of a cupboard. It was messy work!

The adhesive was almost empty and the pieces had to be coerced into staying put.

I tried to make it like a shattered man - shaping one side as nose mouth etc., and adding bits that represented tears coming from the eye.

Once glued I mixed a sludge of grout and applied over entire thing wiping of the mirror sections as I went. As I worked the grout was firming and I was able to mold the edges better and set some gemstones into the mix.

Some fell out and I was down on hands and knees trying to find the semi precious stones before the vacuum cleaner.

For the eye I put in a square cut blue gemstone, (can't remember if it is a piece of lapis lazulli or some other blue stone).

Anyway the cleaning of the mirror pieces took longer than the whole gluing, grouting process but in the end it looks good, (there is still a bit of cleaning to do but I got tired!).

I think if I did it again I would use big gemstones not the little faceted ones. (I used peridot, garnet, amethyst, moonstone and topaz.) The big ones could have been stuck with the adhesive where the small faceted stones could only be set in the grout and it is likely they will fall out over time. I guess it all depends on how often I clean the mirror!

It was a fun way to spend the day but very tiring. The girls like having a mirror there now as we only had a small one there before. I just hope I haven't brought myself a shitload of bad luck!