You know from this post and this post that we’re huge fans of wood art and making wood LOOK like 3D wall art! Nick had a brilliant idea to make a patterned ‘3D-illusion’ art that incorporates pieces of MIRROR! We were having so much fun making this piece that we decided to invite some buildy-blogger (and YouTuber!) friends to join in! We challenged them to create a piece of art with only two stipulations… it needs to be square and it needs to be primarily made out of wood.

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I’m going to share details of how our wooden art came together so you can make your own if that’s a desire of your heart. And even if it’s not, it’s a really fun process!

Either way, stay with me until the end of this post to see what everyone else came up with! There are SO MANY unique and creative wooden art pieces that our friends came up with!

Wood and Mirror 3D Wall Art

Supplies

• Wood (we decided to use a chunk of rough-cut lumber and resaw it, but you could totally use pine 1x4s)
• Stain – we used this and this
• Mirror
• Glass cutter
• Vice grip
• Wood Glue

 

Tools

• Band Saw
• Precision Miter Gauge
• Table Saw
• Miter Saw
• Grex Pin Nailer
• AirStrike

 

We have a bunch of rough-cut wood to use up, so we started out with this big hunk of wood. We cut it with a jig on the band saw into 1/2” strips like so:

We cut two stacks of 3/8” strips, and a third stack of 1/4” strips of wood. The reason for this is because we’ll be adding the thickness of MIRROR to the thinner strips so that in the end, all of the boards will be flush with each other. Does that make sense??

Time to clean up those edges! Although, having bark on the edges could be cool for other types of wooden artwork. It just wasn’t the look we’re going for here. Plenty of rough-cut lumber for some 3D wall art in the future!

Time to start cutting a lot of repetitive angles ultimately mage a TON of trapezoids! This was made SO much easier by our Precision Miter Gauge. It’s important to get these shapes just perfect, because they’re what makes this piece look like 3D wall art!

So we have two stacks of trapezoids that are 3/8” thick, and one stack of trapezoids that are 1/4” thick. Let’s put on some gloves and start cutting some mirror, mkay?

We used this glass-cutting tool and scored the mirror with one good swipe. Then, just snap them apart! Of course you’ll have some casualties (both the mirror AND your hands… if you’re not wearing gloves)  (not that we would know)

I’ll be the first to admit that cutting mirror (or any glass) sounds super intimidating. But with the right tools, it’s pretty easy, and surprisingly precise!

Now that we’ve added mirror to each of the 1/4” trapezoids, they’re all the same 3/8” thickness and are ready to be assembled on our back board substrate!

Below is a pic of the rendering Nick drew up on this CAD software to help us figure out angles and whatnot. It helps you visualize how this is going to come together too!

Since we’ll still have to run the edges of this wall art through the table saw to clean up the edges, we opted not to glue down the mirror pieces until the very end. But we still laid out all the pieces to stand back and admire it. This was THE FUNNEST PART!

On half of the remaining wood trapezoids, I stained them Maple Brown (this stuff!) to give this geometric wall art a truly 3D effect!

In preparation for gluing, we removed all of the mirror pieces, and began placing them on the glued-up substrate, one at a time. It’s important to make sure you’re putting the right pieces in the right place on this! You don’t want to mess up your whole pattern!

Once the glue is good and dry, go ahead and slice off those edges with the table saw to make a perfectly square piece of art!

Before you start slathering glue onto the backs of your mirror pieces, you might find that some of them don’t fit perfectly into their ‘cavity’. You may need to carve the wood around the edges a bit to make enough space for the mirror piece to fit down in there snug. Then glue on your mirror pieces using this glue.

We just added a simple 1/2” frame (stained this color), and used a plunge router with a keyhole bit to make a hanger on the back. This thing is heavy, so you don’t want to trust it to a sawtooth ‘comb’ hook!

Doesn’t it totally look like 3D wall art?!

Doesn’t the reflection in the mirror just make this 3D wall art even more interesting! Every angle seems like it’s own unique piece of art!

Peekaboo!

Now do you want to see what all of these other amazing bloggers and YouTubers came up with for their ‘square wooden wall art’?! ME TOO! Check it:

1) Reality Daydream / 2) 100 Things 2 Do / 3) House Becoming Home / 4) Anika’s DIY Life / 5) My Repurposed Life / 6) 3×3 Custom / 7) One Project Closer / 8) Merrypad / 9) Chatfield Court / 10) Create & Babble / 11) Hazel & Gold / 12) Jen Woodhouse / 13) Sawdust 2 Stitches / 14) Wood Work Life / 15) Remodelaholic / 16)  Evan & Katelyn / 17) Jaime Costigio / 18)  Pneumatic Addict / 19)  Bower Power / 20) Lazy Guy DIY / 21) My Love 2 Create / 22) Addicted 2 DIY / 23) Her ToolBelt / 24) Shades of Blue / 25) Ugly Duckling House / 27) DIY Huntress / 28) Mr Fix It DIY