Scandinavia Blog Hop

Scandinavia Blog Hop!!

So today I am working with Club Scrap's Scandinavia kit. 

Sooo I know I have written about my little rock fetish before - but I just love how much it makes people happy. AND I am not talking about just kids - we all know how much kids love to find rocks, but adults love finding rocks too!! I just got back from Clubscrap retreat and last year at retreat I had painted a bunch of rocks and left them around for the other retreat goers to find. Well this year everyone was soooo disappointed I hadn't repeated the same thing. One gal told me a story that when she is in a bad mood, she will go find her rock, pick it up and rub it, and it brightens her mood. Do you know how good that makes ME feel??? Just knowing what a simple thing I do, can bring such joy to someone else, just really makes me happy!!!

So anyways here in my local town last summer we started a Facebook rock group - it was very small - like 20-30 people for the longest time...but in the last couple of months it has just boomed...we now have 800 people in our group - I know doesn't sound like a lot, but I don't live in a real large area here in Montana. I love to leave rocks around town and read the stories that come in from folks on the group, it always leave a smile on my face!!

So when the Scandinavia kit came out - I just knew these rubberstamps would be perfect for decorating rocks. Let me show you how to make some pretty rocks that you could leave around your town too and make your local peeps happy too - spread the love!!

TIPS:
Find FLAT rocks...they are easiest to rubberstamp on!! (I get mine at a big huge river with gajillions of rocks).
Place your unmounted rubberstamp onto a mouse pad, sticky side on the pad. This allows a little more flexiblity with trying to stamp on a rounded edges of the rock.
Don't touch the HOT rock!! Let me repeat that: DON'T PICK UP THE HOT ROCK!!!

Supplies:
Flat Rocks
Spray Paint
Versamark ink
Rubberstamps
Embossing powder
Polycrylic spray

Instructions:
Start by finding a bunch of flat river rocks, if you don't have a river around, you can purchase rock by the pound from landscaping companies. I think you can also purchase at craftstores. I then spray painted my flat rocks with different colors of Matte paint as shown in the photo:

Next place your unmounted stamp onto a mouse pad - sticky side onto pad, use Versamark ink to ink stamp, place rock onto the stamp face, careful roll the rock around to ensure full coverage of stamp onto rock. This is a little tricky.

Next add embossing powder, I used all sorts of different colors even some with tinsel in it, they all seemed to work great:

Next use heat gun to melt embossing powder - now TIP here...it will take a LONG TIME - like way long - like looooonnnnngggggg - OK maybe not that long but if embossing on paper takes say 30 seconds, the rock takes (I am guessing) 2 or 3 minutes...I think that whole darn rock needs to heat up before it melts...but eventually it does...BUT DON'T PICK UP THE HOT ROCK!!!! It will be HOT and probably burn your fingers. I just slide rock onto a piece of cardstock and moved off to the side to cool down. Takes them quite some time to cool down too!!

On the back side of each of my rocks - I put the name of our rock group - occassionally I leave my initials too - and if there is room, I will write "keep or rehide". I have paint pens that I use for this - a lot of gals use Sharpies - which work - but you have to be careful when spraying the protective coating, as it will 'run' unless you spray a very VERY light coat first, let it dry. I use Posca paint pens - the super fine ones are awesome for writing. Some folks use Gel pens with good luck too - so just experiment and see what works for you!! If you are like me, you already have a nice stash of pens in your craft room!!

IMPORTANT LAST STEP is to spray the rocks with polycrylic sealing spray. Do a light first coat, let dry. Then a repeat a few more times to ensure a decent protection on rock. Do on both sides of rock!! This protects it when putting it back out there for others to find it!! Gives the rocks a nice shine while being protective at the same time!!

Thanks for stopping by...now for more great stuff -

go check out Kay's blog hop project!!!
Or if you want to start at the beginning,
go check out Club Scrap!!!

The majority of the materials used in this project are from ClubScrap. TFL DebDuzScrappin