Rusting Things ................................

Greetings lovely friends & readers

At the beginning of last week we ran completely out of firewood & our house was Oh So Cold!  I was able to borrow some from youngest son but still not able to light the fire until the end of each day, when usually I have it going all day long (& most of the night). Finally we got another load delivered on Friday & I lit it right away - the two furry ones were so pleased & took up residence in front of it for the entire day.

 Yes they are both wearing "their winter coats - plus a couple of others (!!)" but we won't mention Pippi's size as it's rude to discuss a ladies weight issue as we all know 😉

Those that know me well know I love an old rusty treasure.  I spend hours scouring the Jeanne d'arc living magazines that my friend Sally lends me & when I visit the French Shop I always drool over the rusty Urns & Figurines that are wayyy out of my budget & even if they were reduced by 70%, they'd still be way out of my budget!  I've wanted to have a go at rusting things for quite some time & winning the Resene voucher * here *, inspired me to try my hand at this Product Resene FX Faux Rust Effect

I'd purchased this white plastic urn from the Variety Store sometime ago & the wooden candlestick was a 50 cent thrifted item. It was covered in old wax but I was able to remove this by tipping boiling water over & scrubbing it.  

The lady in Resene told me I could Not use the product on plastic but upon talking to the Rep, he told me it's the products that react with each other, not the surface they are applied to.  This made me think that I could paint the plastic first to seal it & give the rust FX something to adhere to, then apply the products.  The lady then told me I couldn't apply paint to plastic surfaces ... Just watch me I thought to myself 😉

I've learned so much about painting items over the years, mainly through my own mistakes & felt confident tackling this but also realising that if it didn't work out, I hadn't ruined an expensive item.

First up I painted both items with some plain black Resene testpot that I already had - 2 coats to give a good seal.  I let this dry well.

As it was a wintery day I dried the items well by the fire between coats

With the Rust FX products you apply the basecoat first, wait 4 hours then apply a 2nd basecoat (this is dark grey in colour). When the 2nd basecoat is still tacky you apply the first coat of the Activator - this is all brushed on, not sprayed. As soon as the first coat of Activator is touch dry, apply a 2nd coat. It began to rust after the second coat & I became quite excited.  Repetitive water misting afterwards will help develop the rust effect - this is what I am doing in the right photo.

I've had this Urn inside but if I put it outdoors I am sure the moisture in the air would rust it further as this is what I've noticed with the candlestick, which has taken on a really deep rusty tinge sitting out on my deck table. 

I'd hoped to plant the urn with some miniature tete-a-tete daffodils but there are none available as yet - too early.  So I planted some miniature violas in it instead.

These look a bit bedraggled as I only planted them this morning but I'm hoping they settle nicely into the urn. 

Encouraged by my "success" I dragged this figurine out of the far reaches of my garden & scrubbed it well.  This is concrete & came from Mums years ago.

Also this other heavier weight plastic urn above left.   I gave them both 2 coats plain white acrylic paint, drying well by the fire.

I repeated the same steps as above following the instructions to the letter.

I was thrilled with how they both turned out - I think I could lightly sand the concrete figurine to give even more effect & age to it.

Here is how I have styled them both on my lounge mantle piece.

The small cherub bottom right, is also out of my garden but she was already rusty - she's a rain gauge (was).

Here is a recap of the before's & after's.  I realise the rusty effect is certainly not to everyone's liking & to be honest The Mr just shook his head when I showed him.  But I love it & already have some tin buckets & other items lined up to try the treatment on.

Thank you so much dear friends, for staying through this lengthy post,

Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead, remember to be kind to yourselves & to each other,

Sending much love & friendship to you all,