Story Stones - My version.

At Easter time I went with my family down to visit Great Grandma at the Ocean.  We made a point of course to spend as much time as we could prowling around on the beach.....as well as visiting with Great Grandma and Great Auntie.

There is nothing quite like searching for the smoothest, roundest, softest stone.  Or the perfect shell, or the right shape of drift wood.  

My daughter and I brought a load full of rocks and sticks home with us.  We have very patient and understanding and tolerant husbands.

Truth be told as far a children are concerned, if they were given the opportunity to play with a bowl or basket of stones and driftwood they would.  Stones and driftwood are beautiful just as they are.

Even so, I decided to paint a few of stones, recently.  The other night, in fact.  My daughter called me up and said, "Do you want to do some crafting?"  Five minutes later there I was, in her living room.  That is still so cool, considering for the last ten years my daughters have lived a crazy, 24 hours drive away!

She was working on felting some flowers for her friends wedding.  And I decided to do some painting.  I started by painting ladybugs.

I used some acrylic paint.  For the lines and dots I used a black paint pen.  Did you know that Michaels has 40% off coupons on their website?  You can bring it up on your smartphone and use it at the check out.  That way paint pens would be super affordable!

After the lady bugs, things got a little out of control and I started having so much fun!  I don't consider myself a great artist by any means.   In my opinion, I thought the imperfections kind of added to the charm of the story stones.

I used the white paint pen for these and liked them, but decided to add a little color.

Some painted with color and some not.  

Pop them in a basket and you have a lovely play invitation. 

Simple and fun.  

I saw this blog post recently with lots more story stone ideas.

You can check it out here.