FAUX RUSTY METAL!

Huh..Faux Rusty Metal From Felt?

From Crows On The Cupola

I came across this blog Crows On The Cupola and found this wonderful idea....So I wanted to share it with you...I haven't had any time to make some for pictures so if you want to see the finished items then just click on

Crows On The Cupola and go to October 6 2009!

Last year while working on projects for my Christmas show I ran out of rusty metal prim stars. It is difficult to find rusty metal stars or any prim supplies for that matter in the area I live and I didn't have time to order on line. I got to thinking how could I make stars of different shapes and sizes as well as other shapes that would resemble the real thing. It had to be something that was inexpensive, something that I could use materials I had on hand and of course something easy!. Then the idea came to me when I was grunging some tea lights to try dipping some felt star-shaped cut outs.. so I turned those bright colored felt pieces into grungy faux looking rusty ornies. The nicest thing is it doesn’t matter what color of felt you use.. they all turn out looking the same!

So here is what you need if you want to make some:

A heavy stainless pot or double boiler
Glass cake pan
Paraffin wax
Cinnamon (I get mine at Walmart)
Felt scraps of any color
Long nose pliers
Small sifter
Metal spatula
Freezer paper
Pumpkin Orange paint
Antique Gold paint
Dark Brown paint
Stencil brush
Scrap paper
Paper Plate or plastic lid

Draw or trace your desired shapes onto paper.. you can use patterns from books or trace cookie cutters if you are not into drawing free hand. I made paper patterns for several sizes of prim stars, a crow, gingerbread men, a candy cane, a bat, a sliver of a moon, pumpkins, letters, etc. You want to keep your cut outs a size that will fit easily in your pot. Pin your patterns to your felt and cut out as many as you want to do.

Next put several blocks of paraffin wax in your pot and melt over LOW heat. Keep your burner on LOW at all times and check melting progress often. While wax is melting pour a nice bed of cinnamon into your glass pan and also lay out your freezer paper, shiny side up next to your glass pan and try to keep this close to your melting wax pot so your not dripping wax across your counter. When your wax has melted pick up a felt shape with your pliers and dip into the wax then lay it in your bed of cinnamon turning it over to coat both sides. Re-dip into wax and coat again then lay onto freezer paper. Don't worry about the surfaces of your cut outs not being smooth.. lumpy and bumpy is good! As you continue to dip, after a while you will notice that the pot will start to get grungy on the bottom as it gets thick with cinnamon which is okay. You can just swirl your felt piece along the bottom of the pot and it will be almost coated, if needed dip back in cinnamon bed. Add wax to your pot as needed to keep it deep enough to dip into. You will also end up with a lot of hardened wax drippings in your bed of cinnamon so take your spatula and scrape the glass and then put the scrapings into your sifter and sift out the cinnamon and put the wax scraps back in the pot.

After the dipped cutouts have completely cooled on the freezer paper (don’t try to move them too soon!) they will lift off easily from the freezer paper. If your freezer paper gets too soiled scrape it with your spatula or you can lay a new piece down if it's too messy.

Once you have all your felt pieced dipped and cooling, turn off the burner and remove the pot to cool. Take a pair of scissors and carefully cut or scrap any messy edges on your pieces. Next step is to give them that rusty metal look ~ However... this is optional cause they are fun to just leave grungy and display in candle pans or where ever, you may want to do some of each!

For the grungy rusted metal look next pour a puddle of orange paint onto a paper plate and then dip your stencil brush into it and pounce some off onto scrap paper to remove most of the paint. Pounce your brush onto your wax pieces randomly. Do all shapes orange first and after they have dried repeat with the gold colored paint. Don't fret if you get too much color in spots cause you can take your brown paint and lightly pounce over the area that you want to tone down. Don't they look like they are cut from lumpy old rusty metal?

Tahhh dahhhh… you now have some fun faux rusty looking ornies in shapes that you would never find in any craft supply store!

The uses for these little faux rusty ornies are endless! The best thing is unlike real rusty tin pieces, you can push a wide needle right through these to tie on loops of string or rusty wire for hanging. You can tie on things like buttons or bells or stitch on them, you can pound a nail into them and they stay put!

Use them on swags, on little trees, tie to packages, bowl fillers in with prim fixins, tuck them into pillow pockets, use with your dolls or put some in a sweet little handmade fabric bag with prim fixins for a gift! They are fun to make and best of all they smell waaaay better than real rusty metal ornies!

I store mine in a plastic ice cream pail in a cool place until needed. Hope you have fun making these!! Enjoy this wonderful project and thanks Deb for this wonderful idea!