Rock Dominoes

I pretty much have a love/hate relationship with our backyard.

I love that its such a beautiful open area that backs up to a natural city green space with park trails and a creek. I hate that the trails lead directly to our backyard and we have had issues with teenagers steeling our lawn furniture and doing illegal things (drugs, pipe bombs, sex) in the woods next to our house. Also, I'm not sure whether or not to blame it on the creek, but our lawn is a soupy mess every month of the year except end of August and early September. We attempted to put in a better drainage system complete with underground pipes and small rockery along the perimeter. It didn't work... but we do have an abundance of really cool rocks.

So we went rock collecting!  

Then we painted our rocks!

I saw a really neat article from Martha Stewart featuring rock crafts. Rock Dominoes was one of her brilliant ideas, so I made our own set.

I used black acrylic paint to paint the rocks and then white acrylic paint to make the lines and dots. I covered them with a layer of Mod Podge for a little glossiness.  I only collected enough rocks for the game to go up to 4 but you could do combinations up to six if you can find enough small flat rocks. I think they turned out great and you could store them in a mason jar or small felt or crocheted bag for multiple plays.

I have slowly been decorating the kids bathroom in a whale theme so I also made a little family of whales that may have to get a home on a shelf in their bathroom :o)