The inspiration for my carved mirrors comes from looking around the eight acres of forest where we live. We have many tall trees, mainly eucalyptus, with vines suspended from tree to tree and branch to branch. These vines form little windows showing light through (1), which is what I have tried to capture in my mirror design.
For this project you have some choices to make.The first is what timber you will use. Your second choice concerns the design. I find the oval shape very pleasing; the suspended vines casting a shadow on the glass give a nice touch. I have made many different oval-shaped mirrors with varying designs, and also many leaf-shaped frames (2) which I also find pleasing. Whichever frame you choose to make, the process will be the same. The third choice is your method of construction, and this will depend on the power and hand tools you have at your disposal. I?will mention different options as I go along.
Regardless of your choices, I think you will find this project to be tremendously rewarding and a great learning process at the same time. They also make really good presents for family and friends.

Preparing the Timber
My choice for wood was Australian red cedar, which is one of our finest and most stable timbers, rich in color and grain pattern. Of the timbers available in the U.S.A. that I know about, maple and walnut would be excellent choices. It is best to have one solid slab to work with because you cannot successfully have joints in the areas of the carved windows, although if necessary you can have a joint in the area away from the windows. The timber should be 1-1/2" to 2" thick and well-seasoned, since any warping that might occur would result in a warped image in the mirror.
You need to flatten the slab so there is no cupping or twist; this can be done by using a hand or power plane to flatten the first side. The second side can be surfaced in the same way or put through a wide planer. What I do in my workshop is run the first side over a 15" jointer in two cuts, one from each edge. If this does not get the twist out I finish it with a hand plane. The second side I run through my 24" planer. It does not really matter if there are any uneven areas on the front side of the mirror frame but the back does need to be flat to be able to rout the rabbets for the mirror and plywood backing.

Drawing the Design
I like to draw the design full-size on the workpiece. For leaf shapes, sketching the shape with chalk is a good idea so it can easily be wiped off and changed (3). (In this article I have used a felt marker for photographic reasons only.) For oval mirrors, I usually plot a true ellipse shape using the trammel method, which I will briefly describe (see drawing). You first need to draw a centerline along the long axis of the timber and one perpendicular at the mid-point across the short axis. On a piece of 1/4" plywood 1" x 24", mark one end as O and then mark the distance from the O end to the mid-point of the long axis; call this point A. Place the stick on the short axis with the O end on the outside line and then mark the mid-point of the short axis; call this point B. If you place point B anywhere on the long axis and point A anywhere along the short axis and draw a mark at O, this will be a plot point. If you continue to plot points by keeping A and B on the axis lines in each quarter, you can then sketch your ellipse.
Once you have plotted all the points, join them by sketching from the inside of the curves. For the inside edge of the frame repeat the plotting process, but move the centerline of the short axis towards the top by about 2". This will give you the extra frame width at the bottom for the windows. Now you can sketch in the positions where you want the windows, top and bottom, taking care to avoid too much cross or short grain at the webs that support the carved suspended vine.
Another way to draw the frame shape is with a piece of thick paper or cardboard big enough to cover the maximum size of the frame. Fold it in half along the long axis and sketch half of the frame to shape. When you are pleased with your drawing, cut out the inside and outside shapes with scissors. When you open out the folded paper you will have a symmetrical frame template to trace onto your workpiece. Because I make about fifteen carved mirrors each year for galleries, I have made templates for my favorite shapes out of 1/2" thick MDF. The drawing shows a true ellipse but the photos for this article are actually a variation on an ellipse.
I usually make a smaller mirror frame out of the timber inside the larger frame to minimize wasting expensive material, and I typically use the part inside the small frame for turning a platter.