Upcycle racket mirrors

This weekends project was a nice simple one that involved old sports rackets and custom sized mirrors. I got the idea from an earlier re-post I did of an article on twisted sifters site entitled:

50 Creative Ways to Repurpose, Reuse and Upcycle Old Things

the original post had included this picture …  BRILLIANT!

I hunted long and hard through the thrift stores for old sports rackets that would fit the purpose and the one rule about thrift hunting that applies is you never go expecting to find what your looking for. It was true in this case, I couldn’t find any old tennis rackets anywhere.

What I did find was a bent and beaten old squash racket and a twisted vintage badminton racket. The frames were deep enough to accommodate a mirror and ply and they were old enough to pass for retro cool. JUST PERFECT! The rackets set me back $1 each.

We went down to our local glass specialists and left them with the bent and battered rackets to work out the logistics of sizing mirrors for them. It took them a couple of practices and two weeks later we picked them up with the mirror pieces (mirrors cost $10 each). Hubby and I then took a trip to the hardware store and purchased some thin laminate board, eye hooks and a tube of maxi-bond.

Hubby snuck off to the garage with all the bits and emerged a short while later all done – with the mirrors and backings glued into place sandwiching the racket strings for extra assurance. He also tape up the rackets to keep the pieces from moving whilst the dried.

When the glued dried we removed the tape and inserted two eye hooks into the frame of each racket head and strung them ready for hanging.

Now they hang in my kitchen/dining area soaking up the scene.

So pleased with this simple cheap little project.