5 Crafts With Painted Stones

Crafts with painted stones are ideal activities for spending time with your family and bonding with Mother Nature. Don't miss these ideas!

Reviewed and approved by the psychologist Elena Sanz Martín.

Written by Maria del Mar Garcia Martin

Last update: 27 December, 2022

Are you looking for crafts to bring the collected stones and minerals to life? Then painted stones are the ideal option for you.

The little ones are especially attracted to see what is under the earth, hoping to find the most forgotten treasures or rescue a lost dinosaur.

For this reason, encourage them to do these crafts to develop creativity with these so formidable finds for them. Write down the step by step and get to work!

5 crafts with painted stones

As a study carried out at the José Carlos Mariátegui University (Peru) points out, crafts with painted stones have several benefits for children:

• They strengthen values, such as respect, honesty, and ethics
• Crafts with painted stones increase concentration
• They also lower stress levels
• They promote leadership
• And finally, they optimize learning processes

If your children love to collect stones from the park or the beach and you don’t know what to do with them, read the ideas that we propose below.

1. “Tic-tac-toe” to play with the family

Do you remember those times when you went to the park to play tic-tac-toe with your friends? If you want the legacy to last in your children, go ahead and play this game in a homemade way with painted stones.

Materials

• 6 stones
• Tempera or acrylic paint and brushes
• Wooden sticks

The steps to follow

• Draw three crosses on three different stones and three circles on three others.
• Place two sticks vertically and two horizontally, so that there are six empty squares on which to place the painted stones.

Get ready to battle! May the best player win.

2. “Dominoes” with painted stones

In line with the above, we suggest you also make a homemade domino set. Of course, make sure that the stones are as flat as possible so that they resemble the original tiles.

To do this, just paint a line in the middle of each one, to separate the numbers that go to the ends. Then, you just have to join the stones of the same number until you run out of chips. Children will enjoy both creating and playing this game during their free time!

3. A farm with animals

If the little one in your house is passionate about animals, this option is ideal for them.

Materials

• Several stones of different sizes
• Acrylics or tempera paints of various colors
• Brushes
• Glue

The steps to follow

• Divide the stones according to size in order to create the different farm animals. We recommend that you start from the simplest to the most complex: First the cows (with large stones), then pigs (medium stones), and then dogs (small stones).
• Once you’ve divided the species, paint each animal with the colors you want. You don’t necessarily have to give them their usual tone. Rather, you can let your imagination fly.
• Let the paint dry on newspaper and, after a while, glue the parts of each animal made with stone or cardboard.

Once you’ve finished with the animals, paint a farm on the largest stone you have. And enjoy!

4. Numbers with painted stones

Either as a reinforcement over the summer or to review what’s being taught in class, this activity can be useful for children to learn numbers in a fun and original way. According to the experts from the Universitat Jaume I, this method helps children to acquire and retain knowledge.

You just have to paint numbers on the stones and decorate them as you like. The key is to let your imagination fly and adjust to every need.

If the child is older, this activity can be used to review multiplication at home, with the support of the family.

5. Plants with painted stones

Of course, this activity uses natural resources to teach children to value nature. Surely, the bond that they create with it will accompany them for the rest of their lives.

To make this craft with painted stones, we suggest you make cactus plants, which are the simplest. However, remember that the imagination is in control and you just have to let it be your guide. Think about the flower that you like the most and just create!

Materials

• A flowerpot
• A stone (or several)
• Marker pens
• Green and white tempera paints
• Brushes
• Newspaper

The steps to follow

• Lay newspaper over the workplace and draw small circles around the stones with a marker.
• Then, paint them white with a fine brush, to simulate the leaves of the plant.
• Once you’ve done this, with a wider brush, finish painting the rest of the rock green.
• When you’re done, let the stones air dry and wait until there’s no trace of wet paint (about an hour and a half).
• Meanwhile, fill a pot with earth or pebbles and place each of the painted stones on them, so that they are raised vertically to appear more natural.

Guests will be impressed when they see this original decoration!

Crafts with painted stones, the small steps of an artist

Children’s souls are full of curiosity and imagination. For this reason, there’s no better way to develop that creativity than by doing crafts as a family.

The ideas that we’ve just presented are designed to instill values in your children for the rest of their lives. Of course, accompany them as they carry out these creations because some involve materials that can be dangerous.

What do you think? Are you ready to put them into practice? Don’t wait any longer to jump into the incredible world of art.