How Clothespins Help Pass Time... By Making A Clock and A Mirror!

Jennifer
by Jennifer
7 Materials
$4
2 Days
Medium

Hi everyone, I so hope all is well!!

To keep you busy while cooped up inside I have two inexpensive projects you can make with clothespins! You can get clothespins on the cheap from Walmart, under $2 for a pack of 100! You can make so many things and I will show you how I made a wall clock and a mirror!

Here we goicon !

Big wall clock!



Mirror!



Take apart the clothespins and glue back together.


Take the pins apart, use a thin line of wood glue on the pin's flat side, now add another half pin.

As you can see I made a bunch!


For this clock I used 156 and a half, I'll explain that "half" in a later step.

Design


I wanted it to be big and just doing one row wasn't big enough so I added more. I really had no plan so I'm going with the flowicon making it up as I goicon !

Making it stick together.


Well as you can see I did this in sections. I would glue a few together (both rows at the same time) then hold them with my fingers for a few seconds. When the sections were dry I then glued all the sections together. As the circle was drying I would press the sections together trying to get a tight hold because you can't use clamps on this so you need to keep pushing it all together. I then had a separation problem, a gapicon in my circle!! No, no, no must solve this!!

Putting on the back.


Well I solved that problem with the half piece! The half piece is there but you don't notice it!icon

The back is a circle I cut out of wood sheeting with a jigsaw. I cut it just big enough to cover the tips of the pins so the holes would not be covered. I put wood glue on the tips only in a big circle, added the wood sheeting circle then flipped it over to dry over night. Drying time is important for it to be sturdy/stable for the paint.

Making the clock dots!


I took the wooden handles from old gardening tools (different sizes). I cut some slices with a table saw and sanded them for painting.

This is the look so far.

Adding paint.


Not sure which one to use at first both are goldicon ! I went with the spray paint because it would get into the holes better. So much easier than hand painting to me!

Adding the clock dots!


Really simple! I painted them black for a good contrasting color. You can see this from across the room with no squintingicon ! I put them on with wood glue.

Adding the clock mechanism.


I drilled a hole in the center, just big enough for the clock part to stick through.

Clock


I got this new for another clock I made for a friend. The one in my clock was from an old clock, I 'm an upcycler! I use old stuff to make new stufficon !! Just didn't have a pic of the old clock. The clock was very easy to put in!!

Finished!!!


My little kitty is very interested in whatever I'm doing!!icon

Now on to one more project, a clothespin mirror!!

Design for mirror.


I did this a bit different in design as you can see and the process is a bit different too. I cut a circle out of wood sheeting just like I did with the clock but this time I needed the wood circle to be 2 inch bigger than the mirror I would use (mirror 10", wood circle 12"). Place the mirror upside down in the center of the wood circle and 1 inch all around will be left for gluing the clothespins on the wood. I used the mirror as my edge and glued the clothespins as close as I could to the edge of the mirror. I let this dry over night and in the morning is when I flipped it over.

Flipping the mirror over.


This video shows you how I did this. icon

Painting.


You can paint it any color you want! I used black and silver spray paint on the one in this video. You can see what white and silver spray paint looks like in the pic below!

Adding some bling and shine!!


I added glass gems in different colors and sizes to this one! I think beads would look great too!! I just really love shiny stuff!!

I love all comments and of course any questions!!

icon Thanks for looking at some of my clothespin projects!

Resources for this project:
See all materials
Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
Hometalk may collect a small share of sales from the links on this page.More info
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
Comments
Join the conversation
4 of 14 comments
Next