Faux-rust tutorial

To celebrate that I am on the Sizzix design team (see this post), I decided to do a tutorial. I call the main technique I use ‘faux-rust’. My son loves cars, so I made a little wall hanging for his room. Here it is:
 

My son loves this project. His first reaction when he saw the big car was to say 'car dirty', which I think was a pretty good observation. It is indeed meant to look rusty, dirty and distressed. This car has been through a lot.

This is a long and rather technique intensive tutorial, the techniques can also be used on their own and on totally different projects. To avoid using too many photos, some of the photos include more than one step.

Supplies:
Dies: Sizzix Tim Holtz Alteration dies: Old Jalopy Bigz die, Mini Old Jalopy Movers & Shapers, Holiday Lamppost Bigz die, Mini Tickets Movers & Shapers, Sizzlits Filmstrip Frames, Base Tray.
Stamps: Tim Holtz Stamper’s Anonymous: Urban Tapestry, Mini Ornates, Odds and Ends, School Desk, Steampunk, Mini Muse.
Paint: Ranger Adirondack paint dabbers: Juniper, Sailboat Blue, Espresso, Pitch Black, Sandal, Silver, Picket Fence; Distress crackle paint Weathered Wood, Rock Candy and Picket Fence.
Inks: Distress inks: Walnut Stain, Old Paper, Weathered Wood, Faded Jeans, Frayed Burlap, Black Soot; embossing ink; Distress Stain: Antique Linen, Pumice Stone; Archival Ink Jet Black.
Alcohol inks: Juniper, Bottle, Stonewashed, Denim, Meadow, Lettuce, Latte, Ginger, Espresso
Embossing powders: Clear Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel (UTEE), Verdigris
Adhesive: Glossy Accents, Studio-Multimedium Matte
Papers etc: grungeboard, Ranger Inkssential clear shrink plastic and manila cardstock; Core’dinations Tim Holtz black kraft core cardstock; old book page.
Tools: Big Shot machine, heat gun, sandpaper, scratch tool, mini mister, mini attacher
Other: Perfect pearls, mica pieces, cardboard, Tim Holtz Ideology mini filmstrips, Tim Holtz Ideology game spinners.

Die cut the Old Jalopy from grungeboard.

Paint all the pieces brown with Espresso paint dabber. Let dry.

Using Sailboat Blue and Juniper paint dabbers, streak on paint from below, letting some of it mix. Don’t cover all the brown paint. The paint dabbers work great for this. Don’t squeeze too much paint onto the dabber, it works better if you leave it fairly dry. If you don't have paint dabbers, you can use use acrylic paint and a paint brush and dry brush the paint onto the car. Paint the small pieces: the license plate and the one wheel in Sandal, the other wheel Sailboat Blue and the remaining two pieces in Juniper. Don’t aim for a perfect result.

Stamp the license plate with an alphabet background stamp using Archival Jet Black ink. Stamp the same stamp using second generation stamping here and there on the car. Stamp ‘Admit One’ on the car using the same ink.

Ink a splatter stamp with embossing ink and stamp it here and there on the car. Sprinkle verdigris embossing powder on top and melt with a heat gun. This step adds a nice extra texture.  

Sand the edges of all the pieces and use a scratch tool to scratch off some of the paint here and there. Ink the edges with Walnut Stain Distress Ink using and an ink blending tool.

Cover the two Juniper painted pieces in clear embossing ink and emboss them with three of four layers of clear Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel. Sprinkle a little bit of verdigris powder into the last layer. This gives the car some shiny parts too. If you don't have UTEE, you can use ordinary clear embossing powder instead, but you will need to do more layers.

To finish the car, dry brush some Pitch Black paint on the wheels. Glue all the pieces to the car with Glossy Accents. For the windows I used a piece of mica, with a fair amount of imperfections in it. I tore it a bit so that it looks like the one window is broken. Adhere to the back with Glossy Accents. Finally, I added a bit of Scattered Straw Distress Stickles to the headlight of the car. I love the combination of the rusty, matte car, the shiny UTEE pieces and the mica windows.

 

This car drives on a pretty unusual road, a film strip with tiny cars inside. I wanted to include some more cars because they will be fun to look at for my son. To make tiny embellishments, I love to use shrink plastic. Die cut six Mini Jalopies from clear shrink plastic, using the base tray.

Colour the cars with alcohol inks, colouring on the back. I coloured two in different shades of green (Juniper and Bottle, Meadow and Lettuce), two in shades of brown (Latte and Ginger, Espresso) and two in different shades of blue (Stonewashed, Denim). Remember that the colour will become a lot more intense when you shrink them.

I shrunk the pieces using a heat gun, but you can also do it in the oven. A wooden stamp works great to flatten them if they curl when they are heated. Dab the cars with Picket Fence dabber at the back, this is to make them a less transparent so that they will stand out more. I also coated them on the front with Glossy Accents, which gives them a more rounded and glossy appearance. On the photo, you see the back of the three top cars and the front of the three bottom cars.

Die cut the Holiday Lamppost from grungeboard. Paint it with silver dabber. Coat the lamppost with Distress crackle paint Rock Candy. I wanted relatively small crackles, so I gave it a medium thick coating. Let dry. When dry, sponge Black Soot into the cracks. Wipe off leftover ink from the paint.

Back the lamp piece with a piece of mica. You can separate mica sheets to make them thinner, but I left this one thick, since you see more imperfections then.

Die cut the film strip from black kraft core cardstock. Sand it a bit to reveal the kraft core and use a craft pick to remove the paper from the little holes.

Die cut the small and larger ticket from manila cardstock. Also cut a strip wide enough to fit behind the film strip die cut. Ink the tickets with Antique Linen Distress Stain and the strip with Pumice Stone. Flick with a bit of water and dry with a heat gun.

Ink the pieces with Frayed Burlap. Stamp the strip with the alphabet background stamp using Pumice Stone. Stamp the sentiment and the ticket on the two tickets with Jet Black ink and distress the edges a bit.

The background: Cut a piece of cardboard (mine was about 22x17 cm) and tear off some of the top layer. Tear up some old book pages and apply Studio Multimedium to the back with a paint brush: Glue them to the cardboard, but leave some of the cardboard raw. Let dry and trim of the excess.

Ink the book pages with Old Paper, Weathered Wood and Faded Jeans distress ink. Roughly paint the cardboard with Weathered Wood Distress crackle paint. Let dry. I added a little bit of Picket Fence crackle paint after the blue paint was dry (forgot to take a photo of this).

Stamp birds on the background using Archival Jet Black ink. Ink the edges and some of the cracks with Frayed Burlap and Walnut Stain.

Finally, I misted the whole background with Perfect Pearls and water, giving it a nice shine.  

Assemble everything. I adhered the car with foam adhesive, which makes the mica windows look even nicer. They look green on this photo, in real life they are brownish.

Glue the cars with Glossy Accents.

I also added some game spinners (love to use them as arrows) and mini stapels.

The main sentiment tag got a mini filmstrip embellishment as well as a tiny piece from an old map book.


I hope you liked the tutorial! If you have any questions, just let me know.

Anna-Karin