Learn how much fun and easy it is to make this cactus rock painting craft. It is the perfect craft for kids and adults to create.
Spend an afternoon with your kids creating a beautiful cactus-painted rock garden together. With the warm weather and summer approaching, you and your family are probably enjoying the outdoors more, so why not pick up some rocks along your travels. Rock painting is really popular right now and the possibilities are endless.
If you’re looking for more outdoor fun, make some DIY chalk paint next!
Want more ideas like this? Subscribe today and get our weekly newsletter plus other exclusive gifts and offers — all for FREE!
Hi, I’m Samantha and I love creating crafts with my three boys! My oldest is particularly fond of painting in general, so I thought this cactus rock painting craft would be great for us to do together. It makes for a cute decoration in your home and the best part is that you can’t kill them.
Why Am I Seeing Painted Rocks Everywhere?
We love hiking and, while we are out on the trails or at a park, we have noticed many painted rocks. It’s like a little treasure hunt. More people have been painting rocks and leaving them out to promote kindness and positivity. Doesn’t it just brighten your day when you see one?
We generally just leave them be. However, I heard that you are allowed to take one if you like it, as long as you leave one somewhere in return.
There are lots of groups on Facebook that are used to track painted rocks. In fact, #PaintedRockLife has labels you can put on your rock so that if someone takes a photo of your rock, you can find out where it ended up. It’s a fun hobby for sure!
What type of rocks are best for cactus rock painting
While you are out exploring nature, you are sure to come across all different kinds of rocks. Depending on what you are going to use the rocks for will determine which ones are better for your craft.
Last summer, we wanted to join in the painted rock treasure hunt, so we grabbed any and all good size rocks we could find. We painted them a variety of colors and the designs we created on them depended on the size of the rock. For example, my oldest really wanted to make a pizza slice, so we found a stone that had a more triangular shape to it and was pretty flat.
With cactus rock painting, you are really going to want flat, long, and very smooth stones, with an oval shape to them. We love the beach and have found many great rocks there. What’s fantastic about these stones is how incredibly smooth they are, which makes them perfect for rock painting. If you live near a river or lake, you should be able to find similar smooth stones. Don’t worry, you can always buy rocks if you need to.
How To Make The Cactus Rock Painting Craft
DIY cactus rock painting is an easy craft to make with your kids and it’s lots of fun. Each of you can customize your cactus rock garden to your taste.
What You Need:
Here’s what you’ll need from the store. The exact amounts are in the printable craft card at the bottom of this post.
Craft Tools Needed:
Supplies Needed:
- Rocks
- Clay pots, or any fun pot
- White acrylic paint, for priming
- Green acrylic paint
- Gravel or sand
- Paint markers
- Optional: flowers, googly eyes
How to prepare your cactus rock painting craft
As I mentioned, very smooth rocks are the way to go with this craft. Once you have those, make sure they are nice and clean, and also dry. Then they will be ready for painting. I used clay pots as the base for our cactus painted rock garden. I kept them their natural color, but you can customize them however you’d like. You can paint the clay pots and even add cute designs to them.
What paint do you use on rocks
Acrylic paint works great for us. I feel comfortable with the kids using it and it stays on the rocks great. I would recommend priming your rocks first, but you don’t have to.
Depending on how dark the rocks are and what shade of paint color you are using, priming them would help to keep your color even on all sides of the rock. We obviously used green paint for our finish colors, but we used different shades. With the lighter green color, priming the rock before helped.
Once they are dry, you can even spray them with an outdoor sealing protective coat. That would be necessary if you plan to put any painted rocks outside, so the paint won’t wash off.
Cactus rock painting ideas
While working on this painted rock craft with my boys, I loved seeing how they customize their cacti. Using paint markers, you can add dots, stripes, or cool geometric shapes to your painted cactus rocks.
I enjoyed gluing pretty flowers on mine, like how you see cactus in the desert. My middle son is my jokester and he liked gluing googly eyes on his.
My two-year-old even had fun painting rocks. There are so many creative ways to make this craft your own.
I hope you have as much fun as we did making this and bonus — you don’t have to worry about watering your new, unique cactus rock garden!
Cactus Rock Painting
Equipment
- Hot glue gun and glue sticks
Ingredients
- 4 rocks
- 1 clay pot
- 1 bottle of white acrylic paint
- 2 bottles of green acrylic paint
- 1 bag of gravel or sand
- 1 white paint marker
- Optional: flowers and googly eyes
Instructions
- Wash, clean, and dry all the rocks.
- Paint rocks white to prime them. Once dry, then paint the rocks different shades of green.
- While paint is drying, fill clay pots with the gravel.
- Once rocks are dry, draw white dots, stripes, and designs on them with the paint markers to make them look like cactus.
- Using the hot glue gun, glue flowers and/or googly eyes onto the painted rocks.
- Once all the cacti are dried and decorated, arrange them in the clay pots. Push them down into the gravel a bit to keep them steady and standing upright.
Love the ideas you see here on Messy Momma Crafts? Subscribe today and get our weekly newsletter plus other exclusive gifts and offers — all for FREE!
More painting craft ideas
If you enjoyed this cactus rock painting craft then you will love these painting craft ideas:
Leave a Reply