Category: Story stones

Fireplace Candle on day 90 of 172 days of Giving up Sweets

My sister sent me this candle for my birthday. Did you know that there is such a thing? A fireplace candle?

It crackles like a fireplace while it puts a good amount of scent in the air. I’m enjoying it with my sausage and mustard I’m eating for lunch. (I’m more than half way in my giving up sweets challenge! YAY!)

Since I got the giving up sweets thing DOWN, I decided two days ago to also cut out the bread and pasta. So, it’s meat and vegetables and fruit for me… Well, and oatmeal for breakfast. If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I love oatmeal!

The last I blogged, I mentioned I’d be painting some stones. Here are the ones I painted for my best friend:

They are all about an inch across. They are pretty quick to paint and enjoyable because holding the stones is so soothing. Why, I wonder?

by Categories: Acrylic painting, Giving up sweets, artist, paintings, caregiving, Christian,, Story stonesTags: , , , , Leave a comment

Today I’m painting stones for my best friend who, a nurse, was hit in the head and is now laid up at home. A miserable time for her especially because it also involved an uncaring atmosphere that the workplace offered after the injury. So there was the injury and then the added insult that also hurt her heart.

The stones I bought at the dollar store. They are 1 and 2 inches in diameter. I plan to paint the little faces of her grandchildren and mail them to her. Here is an example of one I painted for my granddaughter.

by Categories: Giving up sweets, artist, paintings, caregiving, Christian,, Stones, Story stonesTags: , , , , , Leave a comment

Stone Soup Story Tiles

 What I did:

1.  Painted the illustrations on watercolor paper using acrylic paints.  See previous post below.  

2.  Took photos of the paintings with my iPhone.

3.  Used Microsoft word tables to make the 2″ tile size pictures.

4. Sent the page to local quick copy center. 

5. Cut out the pics. Could just cut squares for younger folks.  But I carefully cut out closely around the objects. 

6. Decoupaged using very thin layer of mod podge. Put a few additional costs of mod podge. Here’s a close up:  

 

 

These tiles will fit very well in the wipee box from the dollar store. The printed story is my version adapted from a very old fairytale I found online.

   
     

by Categories: Acrylic painting, Art, Music and the Mind: Stone Stories Summer Adventure Camp - preparations, Stones, Story stones, Uncategorized 1 Comment

STONE SOUP STORY STONES AND ART FOR BOOK

I have had such joy creating story stones. Actually I painted the stones before painting the large paintings. 

Stone Soup is s story of bringing together the little of what you have to help many. 

   
                         

by Categories: Acrylic painting, Art, Music and the Mind: Stone Stories Summer Adventure Camp - preparations, Stones, Story, Story stones, Uncategorized Leave a comment

Music rocks in baby wipe container with chalkboard tape

IMG_0785

IMG_0784

IMG_0786

What took the longest was taking off the big Elmo picture from the wipe container. I used a pampered chef scraper and Goo Gone. The rocks fit beautifully. The chalkboard tape is good and gluey so it went on nicely. I used chalk markers. The idea is that the teacher could erase and write in other details if desired. I like the chalk markers. They go on smoothly.

by Categories: Acrylic painting, Art, Game, Story stones Leave a comment

Spin a Story Game Story Stones

I’ve got the neighborhood kids excited to be testers for this game.

2015/01/img_0134.jpg

The spinning stone is round on the bottom and spins easily.

2015/01/img_0136.jpg

2015/01/img_0137.jpg

2015/01/img_0138.jpg

2015/01/img_0139.jpg

2015/01/img_0140.jpg

The player begins his turn by first selecting a stone and then spinning the spin a story stone. For instance the first player selects the flashlight and spins a verb. The player could begin. “The night was pitch black dark. The only thing visible was the light beaming from a flashlight.” The verb is beaming.

Player number two perhaps selects the black bear and spins an adverb. He must first repeat what has already been told and add an adverb and the black bear. Since we know that an adverb describes a verb, the player might add. “The light was brightly beaming and darting to and fro as if the holder were looking for something. But what? Not the black bear that suddenly jumped out of the brush and knocked the holder down to the hard earth.”

The game gets challenging as the players must remember what has gone before and build into the tale. A player who forgets is out of the game.

That is the way we will play for the neighborhood kid test. Hope it goes well.

by Categories: Art, Game, Stones, Story, Story stones Leave a comment

Jack and the Beanstalk

A great children’s classic! Retelling this story is fun! Try starting this story with a different concept. Maybe the giant is actually friendly and it only sounds as if he says mean things. Maybe he comes down from the stalk and helps the poor? Maybe the golden egg goose stops laying eggs unless she gets 5 magic beans?

2015/01/img_0126.jpg

by Categories: Art, Stones, Story, Story stonesTags: , , Leave a comment

The Three Bears Story Stones

2015/01/img_0120.jpg  

I began my first adventure with story stones as a gift for my grandson and I have since done several sets of stones that I have given away.

How I wish that I had taken a picture of all of them but you can’t go back and fix things like that. I’m usually only very interested in doing the art and am now reforming and trying to get interested in the art of the blog and the Internet and putting my pictures of my work out so that I can show them to people.

You might be wondering what story stones are good for. Right? The way you can use this set of story stones … The three bears… is to try to tell the story using the stones in the order that the story takes place for instance, the three Bears have just sat down to their hot porridge and they cannot eat it because it’s of course too hot so they go for a walk and during this time Goldilocks comes in and tries the porridge. Then she sits in the chairs and lays on the beds and when the three bears come home they find her in the baby’s bed asleep. It is a favorite fairytale and an old one that many people will enjoy young and old alike. The stones are meant to be enjoyed along with the story. I found that YouTube is a treasure trove of children’s stories. If you don’t have the book, check out a YouTube reading.

See if you can invent your own story. There are also games you can play but that is for another post.

by Categories: Art, Stones, Story, Story stonesTags: , , Leave a comment