Sham-rocks are a hit! And an MS Awareness month message.

When I started painting rocks a few months ago,  started to realize that these rocks could be currency in my pocket to give to people I want to show my appreciation for.  When I recently had My ladies who Lift Group at Panera with an Irish theme, I didn’t want to paint large rocks for everybody.  So one of the kits that I had ordered from Amazon was smooth river rocks with a bunch of little rock pebbles.

I never really use the little tiny rocks for anything. They were just on my shelf. When I looked up how to use these pebbles, people took them and glued them on artwork and made them into people or birds and branches, which is really cute, but I wanted to paint on these rocks.

I had a need to paint on them so I thought of the symbol of the Irish for St. Patrick’s Day, and I thought of a shamrock right away. I then went to look online to see what the shamrocks look like and how I could paint them. I broke down the structure into four hearts and a little stem on the bottom. This would be easy enough. I then had to look at my paint collection to see the easiest way to paint this so I started with the first rock and realized that my larger paint pen was not thick enough to actually show color through because the rock was darker. These are some of the creative considerations I had to think of when mass producing Pebble kindness rocks for people.

On the back of the rock I wanted to paint a very simple orange ribbon for MS awareness day. This way my purpose was twofold. I was wishing people good luck and happiness on St. Patrick’s Day, but I also was making them aware of MS. And any time someone hold that rock we looked at it, they would remember that someone with MS made it.

Soong this project I showed that I hope that these rocks are treasured for a long time. Even if they got rid of the rocks they’re still going to go on. They will always be part of nature and really can’t be destroyed. If they threw it in the garbage it would end up somewhere and still be a rock. If it was on a beach maybe it would turn to sand.

But this little treasure was really appreciated by people, Some put it on a desk, some told me they were going to have it in their car. I gave it to people at the gym that I see every day at 5 AM that motivate the heck out of me to be there. People think I inspired them, but it is really twofold. It’s a positive environment and I really thought that this was a good way to  show my appreciation for people that I don’t really get to talk to on my way past them at the gym.

So I’m very thankful and grateful that I did this project. All I needed was some pebbles. a way to paint on the rocks, some sealant (Mod podge), and the  to let them dry on overnight. Each of the pieces of the rock, the actual shamroc.k the sealant for the shamrock, the MS ribbon, the sealing the other side, each of those take about a day to dry. So it was not just a quick project it was something that took time.

Sometimes things are worth the wait. I’m looking forward to our spring fling theme, and making some pretty flowers. Or birds. Both remind me of spring. I definitely recommend taking something from nature making it even more beautiful and showing your appreciation with it. Gratitude really goes along way.