Recently, I undertook the task of completely making over my son's room. I have to say, I had a lot of fun redesigning this room. Even better was his reaction to the transformation. Slowly, I am accomplishing small projects to really make his room pop - like these DIY portholes!
I originally suggested having porthole vinyl decals next to his bed so it appears he is looking out to sea. He loved the idea. Then I had a conversation with my father, who suggested 3D portholes would be more realistic and way cooler. Why are you trying to create more work for me Dad?(Even though your idea IS awesome)
Rather than go through the trouble of cutting perfect circles out of plywood, I decided there MUST be something circular on this planet that I can use instead. I also researched the web for ideas and surprisingly really didn't find much help. So, this project was entirely all guess work and pure luck. Which explains why I had to redo them multiple times after trial and error.
This tutorial will provide the basics, optional material and what ultimately worked for me. What I envisioned was a 3 dimensional porthole with material that mimicked glass and rivets as well. The hardest part was finding what looked like glass, but wasn't glass, that I could cut. Clear acrylic sheet! Who knew this existed? Because I totally knew, just testing you. Honestly, I cannot even remember who first enlightened me to its existence, but this is the part where you bat your eyes at someone with knowledge of a jigsaw and ask them to please cut circles for you (or do it yourself if you're so inclined, but I wasn't).
