If you’re looking for a quick and easy Canada Day craft for your kids to make, check out this simple “Canada Rocks” craft! All you need are smooth beach stones and acrylic paint!
I know that your Canada Day festivities will be kicking off in a matter of hours, but if you have time to squeeze in a last-minute Canada Day craft with the kids today, this one is really quick and easy.
We came up with the idea for our “Canada Rocks” when we were collecting stones for crafting with at the beach recently.
We live on the shores of Lake Ontario, and our beach is lined with millions of these beautiful, smooth stones. The kids love to paint and decorate them, so we always bring a bunch home with us any time we visit the beach.
With Canada Day approaching, we thought it would be fun to turn a few of our newest rocks into “Canada Rocks”. After all, Canada does rock. We are blessed to live in such a wonderful country.
To make our “Canada Rocks” craft, we used:
- smooth beach stones
- red and white acrylic paint
- paint brushes
- craft varnish (protects the paint from scratching and makes your rocks glossy)
- maple leaf cookie cutter (optional)
Painting our “Canada Rocks”:
Before we began, we washed and dried our rocks to remove any dirt and grit. The rocks dry quickly if you set them in the sun. You can also give them a blast with a hair dryer.
Next, you just paint your design on your rock.
A maple leaf is a tricky thing to paint. Originally, I was going to pick a small maple leaf off our tree to trace, but then I remembered I had picked up a maple leaf cookie cutter, thinking we might make some Canada Day cookies this year.
The cookies didn’t happen, but the cookie cutter came in very handy for this project.
We traced the inside of the cookie cutter, and voila – the perfect maple leaf.
Then we just had to fill the maple leaf in with red paint (an angled paint brush worked perfectly for filling in the points of the leaf), and add some bold bands of red on either side of the leaf.
Or, you can do what a couple of the hooligans did: they started with their bands of red and white, but instead of painting maple leafs on their rocks, they painted a heart instead.
What a great idea! It looks like a Canadian flag, but it perfectly symbolizes our love for our wonderful country.
To finish, we brushed a layer of clear, acrylic craft varnish over our rocks to protect the paint from scratching, and to give them a nice glossy sheen.
Aren’t they pretty?
You can use your Canada Rocks as paper weights, garden markers, door stoppers, or you can simply place them on a table, porch or patio for a pop of patriotic pride on Canada Day!
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Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.
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