National pet rock day

They have a holiday day for everything these days don't they?!

Celebrated on the first Sunday in September every year, Pet Rock Day was made famous back in 1975 when Gary Dahl created a literal pet rock, marketing that they didn't need feeding, walking, grooming etc and were the ideal family pet for that reason. Though probably bought in jest for most people, he ended up selling millions of them, packaged in little cardboard boxes with air holes for transportation.

This year we have decided to celebrate it too! It's become more of a recent trend to paint a rock and leave it somewhere for somebody else to find - some people even leave a little random act of kindness with theirs. Painting and placing rocks has almost become a way for people to spread love and positivity without breaking the bank. It also gives the opportunity to put in as little or as much as you want. You can spend minutes to hours painting these rocks and it's a project Alfie and I enjoy doing together.

 

Perfect for the very young and the very old it's an activity that knows no boundaries really. Tiny rocks, big rocks, small rocks. Round rocks, jagged rocks. Brown, black, white or grey... some multicoloured even. They're available pretty much everywhere, which is always a perk! 

- rocks (obviously) of your choosing 

- paints: we use acrylic paints

- paintbrush

That's it, literally.

The rest is left to the imagination. We've painted spotty ones, little bugs on others, wrote messages on some. A few of them we like to keep but most of them we leave for other people to find and hope they then hide them for the next people to find, or take it home as a souvenir.

I wonder how many of our painted rocks are sat in people's houses right now, or how many hands others may have passed through.

 

In a day where the next best tech seems to be the wanted thing, sometimes it can be good to take it back to basics.

Will you be doing some rock painting on Sunday, to celebrate Pet Rock Day?