As I was preparing for my Carriage House Sale, I decided to rusty up a few things to sell.

The tall pot is plastic, the finial looking thing is that heavier resin stuff, and the smaller pot is clay with some sort of faux finish on it.

I knew they would all look better rusty.

Then, while I was at it, I also decided to add a little rust to this buddha.

I know he doesn’t look too bad to begin with, but in person he did look a bit too faux.

He is also made out of a heavy plastic.  I was slightly stunned to find a Bachman’s price tag on his bottom for $79.99.  What?!  Did someone really pay that much for him?  As you can see, he’s only about as tall as a watering can, so he’s not large.  Seems a bit crazy to me.

Anyway, I treated all of these items to the same prep.  After cleaning them with some Dawn dish soap and the hose and then letting them dry, I gave them all a coat of Rust-Oleum flat black spray paint as a primer.

Dixie Belle does make a product called Prime Start that you can use as a primer …

but I prefer to have black as a base coat.

You can use any flat black paint, so I’ve often used Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky or Caviar, but sometimes spray paint is just easier.

Once the spray paint was dry, I applied a coat of Dixie Belle’s Iron paint using a stippling motion.

The Oval Medium synthetic brush from Dixie Belle works perfectly for this.

The stippling motion is important because you don’t want any brushstrokes.  The activating spray will pool in brushstrokes making them stand out more.

Once your first coat of Iron paint is dry, stipple on a 2nd coat and while it’s still wet, spray the piece with the Dixie Belle green activating spray.

Now, we wait.

I find that the rusty finish takes a while to develop.  As in several days at least.  If you leave the item out in the rain that helps even more.

But be patient because the end results are worth it.

At least I think so.  I like a good rusty finish on garden items.

Buddha looks amazing tucked into the garden.

The tall urn planter looked pretty plastic before, but now looks like it could be a genuine iron planter.

I had all of these items at my Carriage House Sale and they all got snatched up by some lucky buyers.  Now I’ll be on the hunt for more cast off items that can be improved with a little rust.

Have you tried any of the Dixie Belle Patina Paints?  Leave a comment and let me know how it went.