rocks to cactus

Okay you say!  Rocks to cactus!  Interesting!  For those inquiring minds asking about where I got this idea and how I did it!   The whole story is this...

Here they are in the pot where they now reside.  Now I didn't go for the OMG! they look so real look but for the "I really like these and I am so happy I don't have to worry about watering them look!"  I tried them in another pot but I like this one best.

A few weeks ago my dear husband sent me a link on Facebook showing this cactus garden in a bowl...Chuck thought I might be interested in trying my hand at making a display like the picture he sent me.  I did.  It took me a while to find the rocks I wanted/needed because to buy them at Michael's or Hobby Lobby could cost me a small fortune!  3 rocks for about $6 was a little steeper then I wanted to pay to play with.   I found the rocks I needed at an outdoor garden store that sells nothing but rocks, big and small, and the concrete statuary for outside near Newcastle, OK.   I paid about $10 for a huge lot of rocks(30 lbs.) and will probably have enough rocks for a lot of other projects for a long time.   I got to pick out what rocks I wanted and this is what I got.  Some flat, some round but mostly odd shaped and lighter in color.

First thing you need to do is give all the rocks a good bath.  OMG!  talk about dusty and dirty.  I guess the paint would eventually mix in with the dirt but a bath is good and I just set them out to dry for a few days in the sun.

Next thing I did was paint every rock a different color of green.  I added white or yellow to a basic green and painted a few rock, added some dark green or black in and painted a couple more....Get the idea?  Don't make it too hard cause it is suppose to be a fun project.  I did a web search and found a whole lot of info on painted rock cactus and I started painting mine just however I wanted and however I thought they would look as a caricature of a cactus.  I actually found some that looked like real cactus and I thought it was too much work and some that were even too primitive for me.  Check out Pinterest for some ideas.

So after painting all my rocks green and getting ideas from various online spots I started painting my rocks and detailing them. 

 

 From top left...

1. dashed lines all across the top and down each side
2. lighter colored lines that I made x's on and put a dot in the middle of each x.
3. just lighter dots
4. x's gone wrong here...I made what looked like flowers and put yellow dots in the middle
5. a flower on the cactus.  Before I did the messed up flower I used various shades of green in a highlighting technique...fancy word cause I actually smeared paint on till I liked how it looked
6. dashed dark lines on lighter green
7. light x's on dark green
8. a rock that had natural pock marks that I just painted green and left it alone
9. once again I slapped some light and dark lines on until I liked how it looked then added white lines and x's with dots in them to simulate spines and stickers.
10. dots and spikey lines.

a little better picture of the stones on the work table.

The other pot!  I thought it looked over crowded is why I moved it into the above pot.  I liked the way the natural rocks make them stand out too. 

 Hope this answered some of the questions I was asked.  I was surprised at the number of sites that popped up when I Googled painted rocks and then painted cactus rocks.  Give it a try.  This was a fun project.

WOYWW #280

It is an interesting Wednesday...interesting from the aspect my body is trying its best to foil all my attempts at a normal day.  I love the laundry list of medical issues I have and I hope that someday there will be a pill to cure it all but so far no luck in that department for me.   Flare ups aren't fun and the decrease in my mental capablilities definitely tick me off but hey you work with what you got...

Since this is WOYWW I guess I should talk about my desk.  If you would like to know why we are here on WOYWW check out Julia's blog Stamping Ground and she will show you how you too can participate in the weekly round of blog hopping!  My desk today...

Not a good picture cause I had to take it with the light on and with flash but it is the best I can do.  I have been doing some more Halloween type projects and you can see the two witches hats in the photo but since they aren't done we won't focus on them!

I just finished a tag for an Anything Goes Halloween swap on ATT and got it in the mail to its recipient today.  I love this stamp set by Tim Holtz and Stampers Anonymous called The Chemist and using some of the Tim Holtz dies and ephemera to create the tag. 

The Chemist set used to make a Halloween tag.  I think it worked!

 I love all the new things I am finding in the jewelry making aisle at Micheal's recently...a good example are these little clock faces!  I have looked all over for more of the Tim Holtz Halloween tags but so far no luck.  Anyone know of a store still selling them?

I used the Tim Holtz Movers and Shapers's bottle dies to cut the bottles out of grunge board.  I painted them a silver color then put bottle stickers on them and covered them with Glossy Accents glaze and Crackle Glaze.  I like the way it cracked but some of the crackle glazed ones just rolled the label up as it started to dry.  The clear ones stayed just fine. 



Another project I worked on this past week was my painted rock cactus garden.  What do you think? 

My husband is always looking out for me and he saw a link on Facebook and thought they were awesome!  I think they turned out very nice and I have enough rocks I might make another! 

Okay that's it for me!  Hope you have a great week and I look forward to reading peoples posts this week!