Rusting the Cauldron

I've been using some classic Halloween home haunter techniques lately, and today I want to show the cheap and easy way to rust plastic.

Part of my scene is a guy getting boiled in the middle of the driveway. We have a cauldron to hold the skeleton; simple, cheap, plastic.

It's like every other cauldron out there on the market, pretty much.

But I wanted to age it up, to make it look more like the kind of cauldron a proper witch would use and had used to boil skeletons for decades.

Enter the oatmeal.

All you need to rust and age up a cauldron is:

• oatmeal
• sand
• glue
• spray paint

Mix the oatmeal and sand with the glue. I used more sand than oatmeal and wet down the glue with water at first. I don't think it did much one way or the other so if you want to stretch your elmers out, you can try it.

Glob it all over the cauldron in various points making a big mess of your hands, the floor, and a dog who thinks she wants to eat oatmeal sand glue.

Let that dry. It will look disgusting and weird, but it's okay. Now we bring out the paint. Black spray paint. I use the plastic adhering because it's what I had and to smooth over any color changes.

 It's not bad, it's got a lot more character now and appears like it's made of cast iron instead of plastic. You can stop here. I thought about it, but I have these orange and dull red spray paints that don't get used as much. So, time to get to rusting.

Orange is the best paint for it. I start at the bottom and spritz at a distance. It takes a few turns of the cauldron. I tried to mix some brown in, but then I ran out. So you can add spritzes of brown if you'd like to deepen the rust.

After that dried, I added flecks of the red. Not too much, it'll overpower if you don't stand way back and only twist with the wrist. If you go too far, you can always go over again with the black to bring her back.

Ta da, ancient rusted cauldron that only took a few things I had sitting around the house. The next plan is to make real looking coals/fire to sit under this guy but I have to wait until stores put out their Halloween lights.

Sigh, how long until labor day?