Decoupaged Stones Tutorial

Decoupaged Stone Tutorial

Hi friends sharing a super simple tutorial ! As crafty girls, you may have heard of the art of rock painting ; well I have been fascinated with it and even tried my hands on it but never been able to paint anything remotely resembling the beautiful stones featured in books or websites!

So if you are like me and don't have the patience to paint ,decoupaging is a super simple and gratifying way to "Stone Craft"!

This is a super easy craft and it feels so gratifying to transform a mundane object into a thing of beauty! You can use these decoupaged stones as paper weights or simply as "objets d'art" in your home! They are so cute you can even gift them!

Decoupaged Stone Tutorial

And don't be scared by the word decoupage...it just means cutting paper into bits and sticking it onto something...No sweat!!

But if you want to go a bit in-depth about decoupage and modpodge check out this link :Mod Podge Tips and Secrets
Materials Required for Stone decoupage

Round Smooth surface stones or rocks
White Acrylic Paint and Paint Brushes
Tissue paper/paper napkins or thin pattern paper
Scissors
Decoupage glue- I prefer Mod Podge Matte to stick and Mod Podge Satin for the top coat
Thin Towel
Felt or foam - to add to the under-surface of your stone
Optional - Distress Inks /Other ink pads and Acrylic paint

Where to collect nice stones suitable for decoupage?

Stones are everywhere....you just need to keep your eyes open. Get ones which are large and can just fit into your palm.Too tiny ones are better suited for painting rather than decoupage and large ones dont look cute enough. A stone the size of an average paper weight would be ideal and then after you have decoupaged it you can actually use it as a paper weight!

Good places to look for stones:

Near house/flat construction sites
Near lakes and rivers
In your garden!
In the park

There is a lot of construction work going on in my neighborhood and truckloads of sand are unloaded frequently for constructing houses. I go for walks with my dogs a couple of times a day and relish collecting beautiful stones [ He he I do the stone picking early in the morning so that not many people are around to see me...dont want them thinking I am crazy!]

Prepare your stones

Easiest way is to fill a bucket with soapy water and leave your stones for a couple of hours/ overnight.....that way you don't have to spend as much time scrubbing them clean.
I do add a little bit of antiseptic Dettol too into the bucket of water just to decrease the germ load before I handle the stones!
Choose stones which don't have cracks....in case all your stones have cracks you can "cheat" and smoothen it out with air drying clay/mseal.
Choose stones which have one flat surface- this just makes working on the stone easier ---decreases frustration of running after rolling stones!

Decoupaged Stone Tutorial

Paint the stones with white acrylic paint...yeah you can skip the gesso...it doesn't really mater!
Use thin paint brushes to really get into all the little dips on the stone!
After drying turn it over and attack the under-surface !
Decoupage only after the paint has dried thoroughly

Choose Decoupage Paper

Decoupaged Stone Tutorial

You can use thin pattern paper, thin wrapping paper or tissue paper. Avoid thick pattern paper as it will be difficult to wrap on to the curved surfaces of your stone

Decoupaged Stone Tutorial

You can cut the design closely or just leave a margin.
For the stones decoupaged with tissue paper use only the top layer and discard the other layers.Tissue papers may have 2 or 3 layers and you have to peel off all layers and use only the printed layer for decoupaging.

Decoupaged Stone Tutorial

You can apply a thin layer of mod podge/ other decoupage glue using a regular paint brush or a foam brush on the dry stone.

Dont apply a lot of glue on the stone or you will be left with a sticky mess and frustrated hair pulling!

Decoupaged Stone Tutorial

Gently place your cut design on the stone and mop with a towel gently!

Decoupaged Stone Tutorial

Once dry you can bring out the artist in you and try a few tricks to help merge the design to the rest of the stone! In the design above I inked the white acrylic painted parts of the stone with Distress Ink to decrease the contrast with my birds.

Decoupaged Stone Tutorial

You can also add a few dots of acrylic paint randomly to up the cuteness quotient!

Decoupaged Stone Tutorial

If you are planning to use your decoupaged stones as paper weights or want to avoid scratching your tables with your stones, hot glue a piece of felt on the under-surface of your stones.

Decoupaged Stone Tutorial

The red flower shown above was cut from a DCWV pattern paper..I fussy cut the flower and leaf close and inked the surrounding stone with distress ink and added white acrylic paint dots!

Decoupaged Stones Tutorial

In this design I experimented with both white and black paint dots! I have used the same napkin on this project too : Foam Rose tutorial

Decoupaged Stones Tutorial

And that is the under - surface of my stone ...the felt levels off the irregularities and not only does it protect your table/other surface from the rough surface of the stone but prevents the stone from sliding or wobbling.