Pretty Painted Stones for Your Garden

by Susan Myers

3 Materials

2 Hours

Easy

I love the look of paisley and I love to paint, so it was just natural to decide to paint a bunch of rocks with a paisley pattern! This easy project took a bit of time, but the results are colorful and very paisley-like! Painted Paisley stones make beautiful decorations in your garden or potted plants, or even on your desk as a paper weight!

I needed some pretty river rocks. Where would I get these? Well…the local fish restaurant has an awesome bit of landscaping which involves thousands of river rocks. So… I suggested eating at the fish place to the hubby, who thought it was a grand idea! Little did he know that I had ulterior motives! To my husbands’ total embarrassment, I asked the manager if I could have some rocks.

Mom comes over every Sunday and helps me with the multiple craft projects that are always piled in my work room. This time I handed her my sweet pile of rocks and a paintbrush, acrylic paint, and asked her to paint them all black. Mom doesn’t question my motives because she knows it will eventually be something nice. So, she grabbed the paint and went to work!

Both sides were painted black with regular black acrylic paint. I chose this because I thought it would be a good contrast against the brightly colored metallic paints. It took two coats on each side to get good coverage.

Paisleys are rather easy to paint. Simply paint a tear drop shape, then add a curled tail to it. Using various colors of acrylic metallic paint and turning the paisleys this way and that, we covered all the stones with a paisley pattern.

I then added more details after each color dried, adding new colors in dots, flowers, and teardrops.

To add contrast, touches of the black acrylic paint were used to create borders and extra design on the paisleys.

The final touch was to seal the entire project with Matte Mod Podge. The Mod Podge protects the paint, keeping it from chipping. They would look just beautiful as a garden decoration or an addition to a potted plant!

For more fun garden projects from my website, be sure to click on the link below!

Enjoyed the project?

You can do it! Saved to your projects

Frequently asked questions

Have a question about this project?

Ask a Question

3 of 4 questions

Ardale on Jul 24, 2017

How well would mod podge hold up to weather if these were placed outside year round? I think these would look pretty placed here and there mingled in with flowers or placed inside a birdbath but would like for them to last a few years! Do you think poly would hold up better in these applications?

6
Cindi on Jul 25, 2017

What kind of paint brushes did you use to make your intricate dots & designs?

2
Linda on Jul 31, 2017

Where can I buy the rocks?

2

Comments

Join the conversation

2 of 40 comments

S. Phillips on May 21, 2020

Thanks for the wonderful idea and guidance. I can't wait to try this one myself!!! :)

Like Reply
Nancy Corcoran on May 22, 2020

Beautiful! I will definitely make these!

Like Reply