Hi friends!
If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know I spend a lot of time sharing art made by my kids. But once in awhile I have the urge to mix things up and share something I made for the kids! Luckily, right when the creative bug hit me, my new bloggy buddy Sam from Thrive 360 Living (a blog you seriously MUST check out the minute you are done with this post) presented me with a crafty challenge. Sam makes, among other awesome things, adorable painted rock sets for her little boy that she shares on her amazing blog. Inspired by a photo from my Instagram feed, Sam was working on a set of fancy magic dragon stones, and wanted to know if I was interested in making a set to compliment them that was a little more “girly.” Although I had never painted rocks before, I happily accepted the challenge and set about experimenting with rocks, paint, Mod Podge, and a hefty dose of glitter…and here’s what I came up with!
Aren’t they fun? The twins got in on the excitement, too…the little ones were made by them!
I experimented with a lot of different techniques when I was creating these. To make the butterfly rock (top left), I painted the design and then completely glittered it in using Mod Podge as the sticking agent with some pastel glitter provided by Craft Project Ideas.com. The large swirly rock was created by squeezing large drops of acrylic paints onto the rock and then swirling with a toothpick. The multi-colored heart rock was made by painting a large circle of aqua and then layering on scrapbook paper cutouts with Mod Podge. The smaller swirly rocks were dipped in paint that I swirled together on a paper plate. Both of my kids fight over the pink heart rock, which has a yummy texture because I used tiny clear seed beads to fill in the heart. Finally, the last rock features fabric squares and a strand of gold tinsel, Mod Podged on with a sprinkle of glitter. Speaking of Mod Podge, I used the “outdoor” variety in case we decided to play with the rocks in the garden or sandbox, but it did give the rocks quite a sheen. Good for sparkly fairy stones, not so good for clear picture-taking 😉
Sam also came up with the idea of using oatmeal containers (or in my case, a bread crumb container) to create storage towers for our rock sets. Genius! I see hours of creative play coming from these fun sets. Combine these with a basket of plain building blocks and you expand the opportunities for imagination and creativity even more.
We use fairy figures from the Safari Fairies Toob, but wouldn’t a whole fleet of these Tinkerbell Clothes Pin Dolls from Red Ted Art be the perfect compliment to our little DIY fairy magic set? I’m completely in love with the glitter wings! My little girl loves anything glittery and girly, so she would be head-over-heels for these. The author of the site, Maggy, is a complete doll herself and has a wonderful new book out that I’d love to get my glittery hands on!
And now, last but not least, hop right on over to Thrive 360 Living for a look at her Magic Dragon Painted Rocks! I’m going to have to make some for my little boy soon, although he is partial to the shiny fairy stones, too 😉 While you are over at Thrive 360, don’t forget to have a look at some of the other creative ideas she has…tour her fun playroom, check out her other painted rock sets (I’m partial to the Very Hungry Caterpillar set she posted last week), and don’t miss her color-matching car game, which my little guy would love!
Cutest things ever!!!! For sure see us doing this soon~ thanks so much for these fabulous ideas!
Ooooh how utterly adorable!! LOVE the painted tree trunk too , as well as all those gorgeous stones. What a fantastic project. And thank you SO much for the fairy AND book mention. So kind of you!!!!
Maggy
Gorgeous! They are now on our summer list for our fairy garden - my daughter will love these!
This is awesome! I must find rocks on the beach this week, because you make me think I NEED to paint rocks!
Those are beautiful! I wanna do this with my boys! They’d love the glitter too
Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, Stephanie! And way to go, Sam for planting the seed of inspiration!
So pretty! I have grand plans for a little gnome house out in the woods and painted rocks like these would be a great addition!!
This is such a great post. I would like to invite you to link up this post to my Money Saving Monday Link Up so others can find this great idea. Please stop by and link up.
I hope to see you,
Thank you,
Stephanie
http://lifesallaboutlittleadventures.blogspot.com/2013/04/money-saving-monday-week-3.html
Just linked you up to Craft Gossip from Thrive 360’s post…love both of the ideas!! My girls would probably be more inclined to welcoming fairies to play rather than dragons, but both ideas are awesome!! Keep creating!!
http://lessonplans.craftgossip.com/?p=8062
Wow! I thought I was creative. Yours are great. Would like to share some of my fairy houses and gardens but am not sure how. Not to smart with computers.