Hand Painted Rock Bugs

Looking for fun summer craft projects for children? Try out these hand painted rock bugs by Amanda Formaro! They're great homemade crafts for kids, where everyone can start their own collection and even trade them later!
 

Materials:

• Several rocks, different shapes
• Paint brush
• Stylus or toothpick
• Acrylic paint shades:pink, red, black, brown, antique gold, antique white, mauve, pink, orange, and several shades of green

Instructions:

1. Wash the rocks and allow them to dry completely.
    
2. Simply paint the rocks to resemble different animals and bugs, such as ladybugs, butterflies, bees, frogs and turtles.

Ladybug

1. Use a flat oval shaped rock, paint it red and let dry.
    
2. Paint a black line down the center of the rock.
    
3. Paint a black oval on as the face.

Bee

1. As with the ladybug, use a flat oval shaped rock, paint it antique gold and let it dry.
    
2. Paint the ends of the rock with antique white for the wings.
    
3. Paint a criss cross pattern on the wings with antique gold.
    
4. Use brown to paint on a few strips and dot on two eyes with black paint using a stylus or toothpick.

Butterfly

1. Odd shaped rocks are good for butterflies. Paint the rock pink and let dry.
    
2. Paint two strips up the center to make the thorax.
    
3. Use a stylus or toothpick to randomly dot on spots and create squiggly lines in different colors such as mauve, light blue, and light green.
    
4. Dot on black eyes.

Frog

1. Paint a larger oval shaped rock with light green and let dry.
    
2. To paint legs and head, use a darker green and paint "C" shapes as seen in the photo.
    
3. Use the end of a paintbrush handle to dot on large orange spots on the frog's back.
    
4. Optionally, you can shade around the spots with a different shade of green.
    
5. Use stylus or toothpick to dot on black eyes.

Turtle

1. Use a smooth, large rock for the turtle.
    
2. Paint rock light green and let dry.
    
3. To make the shell, paint ovals over 3/4 of the top of the rock with a lighter shade of green.
    
4. Use a yellowish green to fill in the areas around the ovals, creating the shell.
    
5. Dot on two black eyes.

Flowers

1. Paint any shaped rock with dark green, sponge on a lighter green.
    
2. Use mauve to paint on the flowers, use pink to shade the outside of the petals.
    
3. Shade the center of the flowers with light blue.