Stones...

My friend Alice over at Mrs Maker blogged about beautiful decorated stones the other day (she saw them here)...I am in awe and just waiting for my pot of ‘mod podge’ to arrive so I can get started. It looks amazing!! As well as making some name stones and some picture stones, I am going to make stone noughts and crosses to play with on the beach using sticks or marks in the sand as the grid. I can’t wait to sew a little pouch to keep them in.

So Alice’s blog post made me think about how much I love stones too...I am quite picky about my stones though. When we search for them on the beach I like particular shapes and an evenness of colour and texture...I sit looking for stones all around me with my bucket at my feet while the children run around collecting. They show me their offerings and they get a stock answer...either ‘accept’ and then I throw the stone in my bucket or ‘reject’ and then I throw the stone over my shoulder. The anticipation is tense and dramatic. They love waiting to see if they have found a good one, stone perfection. Sometimes they try to get me ‘pretend’ cross by bringing me ugly duds and watching them fly over my shoulder with the cry ‘reject!’ getting louder! Last time we did this, loads of other children started getting in on the action and bringing their stones for assessment, in the end we had to stop not least because it is never a good idea to throw stones over your shoulder when surrounded my children!*

Zac last August on Charmouth Beach (stone heaven)

So, I think I first fell for stones during my A-level art course at secondary school. I did a project on Andy Goldsworthy and I loved his work with perfect stones and beautiful leaves and mounds of earth and ice and wood...you get the idea.

I used to love to tower the stones up and leave them for people to look at and knock over. I also admire the skill of the stone balancers. There is this one guy that comes along to the beach in Lyme Regis in the summer, what a skill to feel the distribution of weight in a lump of rock and balance it like that.

Other things I have done with stones include....

Crocheting a cover for a stone...I followed the pattern I found here. I know it sounds mad and it’s definitely one of the crafty moments Ed (and a fair few others) have completely failed to ‘get’. (Please note, if you love this and decide to go for it yourself, do read through the comments section of this link first as there are a couple of errors corrected in there).

Stone decorating with the children at Gabe’s 4^th Birthday party this year...all inspired by the best stone story ever...

'Bonting' by Shirley Hughes...If you like stones you MUST read your children this sweet and beautifully illustrated story from the ‘The Big Alfie Out of Doors Storybook’. My boys love it. So anyway, thanks to Alice for reminding me of stones and leading me to this cool project and hurry up my mod podge!

Byeeeeee. Nix

* No children were physically or emotionally hurt in this stone hunt...Everyone got at least one ACCEPT! after a little coaching on the qualities of a fine stone!