• This year my family and I made ourselves a garden. It is nothing amazing, just some spices and a few vegetables. We did our best to keep our kids involved in the process as we could. One of the ways we did this was by letting them design rocks to border the garden.

    First, send your kids on a rock hunt. The size of rocks depends on your personal taste. Just give your kids an idea of what you want and how many you need. Of course if you aren’t making a garden, you can just use any rocks that your kids happen to find. This is a great way to get your kids outside on a summer day instead of watching tv!

    Next bring your collected rocks inside and wash them or you can do it in a bucket outside so you don’t soil your sink. You don’t have to completely scrub them or anything, just remove any clumps of dirt.

    While you are washing your rocks preheat your oven to 220 degrees. Put your clean rocks onto a cookie sheet and warm them in your preheated oven for about 10-15 minutes.

    Meanwhile prepare your work surface. Lay out craft paper, news paper, or paper towels to protect your tables from hot melted crayon. It’s hard to get off, trust me.

    Finally remove your rocks from the oven and put them on your prepared surface. Make sure your children put on their oven mittens. Then using crayons allow supervise them painting the rocks. The wax of the crayons hits the hot rocks and instantly melts. It leaves behind a waxy covering that will eventually harden to a shine and stay on the rocks for quite some time.

    For our crayons, we used regular old crayons. I removed the paper from them so it was easier for my kids to “paint” with. This also ensured that the crayons were long enough to ensure no one accidentally touched a hot rock.

    This is a fun little craft, but I will reiterate that smaller kids will need to be supervised to make sure they don’t burn their little fingers!