Trompe L'oeil Floor

Instructions for creating a unique faux brick floor.

Cover a plain floor with a brick pattern made from stamps and paint.

All About

Product Ideas

Materials:

cement cleaner
large rectangle sponge (wallpaper, boat or car sponge)
outdoor paints (terra cotta, black, bright yellow, green, orange)
foam brushes
paper plates
scrap paper
scissors
foam stamps (#72037 Sunflower, #72052 Leaf Cluster)
wedge-shaped applicator sponges
water-based polyurethane
paintbrush or roller
fine paintbrush

Steps:

Clean cement following manufacturer's instructions.
Pour a small amount of terra cotta paint onto one paper plate and black on another Use a foam brush for each color and load one with terra cotta and pat the paint onto rectangle surface of sponge.

Figure A

Load foam brush with black paint and add accents to the same sponge (figure A). Stamp on blank paper to get a feel of how much paint is on sponge and to practice amount of pressure needed to apply a brick image.

Create brick patterns on paper and cut the images out to use as patterns to determine the placement of the bricks to stamp on the floor.

Figure B

Stamp floor with brick--reapplying paint after each stamping (figure B). Allow to dry.

Pour small amounts of yellow, green and orange paint onto a paper plate. Using a separate applicator sponge for each color, load the flat edge of the applicator sponge into yellow, pat excess off on paper plate. Pat yellow paint onto petal portion of sunflower stamp.

Load the flat edge of applicator sponge into the orange paint. Pat orange paint onto center portion of sunflower stamp. Stamp sunflower over brick pattern. Repeat process, reapplying paint to stamp for additional sunflowers.

Load flat edge of applicator sponge into green paint. Pat paint onto leaf cluster stamp.Stamp leaves close to sunflower image. Repeat process for additional leaves.

Figure C

Use a paintbrush to touch-up the sunflower and leaf stamped images (figure C). Layering the paint colors helps to create added dimension to the previously stamped images.

Use a fine paintbrush to add shadows with black paint to the stamped images.

Allow paints to dry thoroughly before protecting floor with two to three coats of polyurethane, letting each layer dry before applying the next.

Resources

Products
- foam stamps, stamping accessories
Guests
- Grace Taormina
  Vice President of Product and Creative Development, Rubber Stampede
  Website: www.deltacreative.com