DIY Painted Rock Dolls

My youngest daughter celebrated her half-birthday while we’re safe at home during this coronavirus pandemic. Half birthdays are a big deal when you #CelebrateAbsolutelyEverything like we do.

In an effort to save money where we can, not overwhelm the shipping warehouses and delivery drivers, and create a unique gift that wasn’t just another toy, we used what we had on hand to surprise her with a little something special that is just her style. My craft-lovin’ girl really appreciated this!

This idea was inspired by a rock painting set that she was given by her church grandma, Kathy. Thanks, Kathy!

My girl has the biggest heart and will not keep anything for herself, so when she opened the rock painting kit right away she started making plans for all of us to use the set with her in a “BEST EVER ROCK PAINTING SESSION!”

It really was the best!

We gathered additional rocks from around our home’s landscaping, some big, some small, and all got to work on our own painting projects.

I used Folk-Art acrylic paint (I most of picked ours up from Wal-Mart back at Christmas, some bottles we’ve had on hand for 8 years or more, some was given to me by my mom) and what we had on hand for paintbrushes (we have a lot as our two older kids get new brushes their used ones are handed down to the two younger ones to use for painting on the sliding door with water or for small crafts). You really only need a couple of brushes for this project, and you can use the back of the brush as a dotting tool if needed for adding details.

HOW TO:

Wash and dry your rocks to get any dirt off that may interfere with the paint sticking. I didn’t actually do this, but I’m sure it’s a good idea.
Paint a flesh tone oval or circle on your rock as the face, and let it dry.
Add the eyes, using two horizontal white ovals as a base, then putting adding circles for color, and a dot of black for pupils.
Add a smile using red, pink, or a combination of the two.
Add hair. The trick here is using small brush strokes, and slightly lighter or darker shades of your original color to give dimension.
If you’d like to you can add a sweatshirt, clothing, or headdress.

You can get as detailed as you’d like. I am so not an artist, so I just painted until I felt like I had enough and stopped. Us non-crafty people are just that way.

When your rock looks how you’d like it to wait a while, or a few days, and hot glue some pieces of scrap material to the back to protect the playing surface. We used felt, and when I say “we” I mean I asked my oldest daughter to do it. She IS creative and loves using a glue gun, so it was a win-win.

I think it’d be fun to design rocks to look like cars or animals as well. Hey mom, will you do this for your favorite grandkids?