After moving to the Netherlands we have started seeing painted rocks on our walks. We got intrigued and discovered there is a big “Happy Stones” movement ( The Kindness Rocks Project) around our area with people leaving painted rocks for other to find to bring the smile to their face. Emily of course liked looking for hiding places, getting the biggest smile everytime we managed to find at least one. It didn’t take long until we became obsessed not only with looking for them, but also painting them. She seen no problem in us starting to paint happy stones and leaving them for people to find. My art teacher could’ve given her few reasons why that wasn’t a good idea. I am bad even with simplest craft projects.
I started looking for new ideas I could do, considering I have no artistic bone in my body and Emily keept brining the new ideas from her preschool.
“Mommy, we learned about spring this week, can we make a spring stone?”
“Today we learned about houses, can you make me a house so I can bring it to teachers?” ( That will surely be the best teacher’s day present)
“What can we paint for the water theme?”
I couldn’t keep up with her ideas, especially since I don’t know how to draw. Luckily, Pinterest is here to help, it has the best ideas that can help you paint happy stones.
Monsters
I love to paint these types of happy stones because you can’t mess them up. Whatever you do, they will still look like monsters. Two eyes, three, four, doesn’t matter. Big mouths, teethy mouths or crooked ones, still doesn’t matter. Your little ones will love coming up with new ideas.
Minions
Minions are all the craze now, especially with a new movie. The moment she seen the posters she decided she wants to try the out, and they were extremely easy to do because all the minions are versatile so you can afford to make some mistakes.
Bees
Another one of our favorites as it is easy to make even for a four-year old and me. It is not that hard to paint happy stones if you find the right ideas that even I can make.
Ladybugs
Similar to bees, ladybugs rocks are easy to make. The most important thing for us is that they give us the opportunity to be creative and mix it up with colors and their spots.
Penguins
Another member of the animal kingdom, penguins are extremely easy to paint. I constantly mess up their nose and they still look adorable.
Mandala
This is a good idea to entertain kids as they can be as creative and messy as they want. They just need to let their imagination lead them and just dot, dot, dot on the stone.
Painting happy stones can be a fun activity for the adults and the children. Just be warned, once your kids get the creative bug they will constantly come up with new ideas of what to paint and you will have to step up your game.