Easy Ladybug Rocks for Kids!

f you've read my previous posts, you might already know that I have two preschoolers at home. Like most parents right now, we are doing our best to keep our kids busy these days. I am so deeply thankful that we have a garden because we love to be outside.

Many people are painting rocks to place in their gardens and on walkways and trails to help raise spirits during the pandemic. We also painted a few to put at the front of our house. That inspired me to take it a step further.

When we moved into our house, we already had a lot of landscaping rock. I also had red, black, and white spray paints leftover from miscellaneous house projects. It dawned on me that I could make an army of ladybugs for the kids, essentially for free! 

I decided that I could hide them around the yard for the kids to find like Easter eggs. Surely that would keep them busy for a while! We could also place them in our friends and neighbours' gardens to spread some happiness.

Make sure that you are using OUTDOOR weather-proof paint so that all of your hard work doesn't go to waste. On a warm and sunny day, the paint should dry quickly. I made 40 ladybugs over the course of about 2 hours using this process.

So, here's how I did it:

1) Collect, wash, and dry an assortment of round and oval rocks of various sizes.
2) Arrange them closely together on newspaper (outside in a well-ventilated area) and spray them all over in red paint. You only need to do one side. Wait until it is dry.
3) Paint the heads black by holding a piece of cardboard over the top to get a clean line. OR you can paint the heads by spraying the paint into a DISPOSABLE bowl and painting with a small craft brush.
4) Using the paint in the bowl, paint a black line down the middle and put on the dots. Now wait until it is dry again.
5) Put white paint into another DISPOSABLE bowl and use a craft paint brush to put dots on for the eyes. Now (again) wait until this layer is dry.
6) Using the black paint in the disposable bowl, make dots for the pupils of the eyes. I used the blunt end of wooden skewers and dipped them into the paint. Let them dry.
7) For good measure, I sprayed them with a gloss clear coat of spray paint (which I also had sitting around).

Voila! Hopefully your kids will love them as much as mine do! I am sure that they will be playing with them endlessly for the rest of the summer. I'm also hoping that they'll last much longer because I prepped them with a little extra TLC.

​Now, get outside and have some fun! :)

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