Rocks in my head

I am in the middle of so many big jobs that take for ages. So I thought I would do a quick little project today. I found this bag of rocks at the back of the shed and decided that the Littlest Man would love them.

 As the Littlest Man is starting to learn his alphabet I thought I would write each letter of the alphabet on the rocks. I used a permanent marker to mark them. I would have rocks in my head if I spent ages on them as the Littlest Man will have them spread around the yard in record time. So I did very basic letters. If I was making them for an older child I would have done something fancy.

The Littlest Man played with them for a while and named the letters. Then he decided that they make good musical instruments and kept banging them together. I have already found a few stray ones in the pot plants.

Edit - I am coming back looking at my old posts and realised that I have no idea where these rocks are now. I haven't seen the bucket or any of the rocks in a very long time. It is a complete mystery. In fact I had completely forgotten I had made them until I saw the photos again. I think it is time to do another shed clean up and hopefully they turn up.

Red's Red Box

It has been a little while between posts as the flu did the rounds in the house and I then injured my shoulder. But we are healthy now and I have caught up on enough housework to allow me to head out to the shed to finish a few projects. 

I have had this timber box for years and it eventually found its way into the shed covered in dust. Time for a huge clean up because this box is going to have a makeover to become a keepsake box for Red. My little Red collects rocks and (affordable) little fossils so this box would be perfect to keep the larger rocks in.

After removing the hardware, a lot of sanding, several coats of primer it was then time to paint the main colour. Little Red got the honour of choosing the colour of his box. He wanted Red and not a subtle red either. I am not a huge red fan but it was his choice.  Here is the start of applying the red.

The red paint started to grow on me. I actually like it now. I did several coats of red and then several coats of varnish. I didn't try to distress the paint as I figured a box holding rocks will become distressed looking quite quickly anyway. I have painted inside and outside of the box in the same colour.

Now for the end result. Here is Red's red box with some of his rock collection.

A huge thank you must go to my friend Narelle who made the stencil for me. You rock Narelle.  Anyone who has ever seen my handwriting would know that there was no chance I could free hand paint or draw the B without a stencil.

Little Red was very happy with his new box and even gave me a Thank you kiss.  Awwwww.