Feeling Pretty Crafty

Remember our trip to Sonoma, CA?  While we were there, we stumbled upon a really beautiful beach with stones instead of sand.

I thought the stones were gorgeous so I made Robbie empty out his VitaminWater bottle and fill it up with some of them.  I knew I wanted to make something with them.  Folks, I am NOT crafty.  I had no idea how I was going to do this, but I knew I had to.  So, we toted the bottle filled with rocks through airport security (getting some funny glances and questions from the guards) and brought them back across the country.

When we got back, I decided I would make a picture frame.  We had a picture of us standing on the beach where we got the stones that I like a lot.  I had no idea how to start so I started scouring the internet.  It was really no help, but I didn't let that stop me.  When I finally got around to pouring the stones out of the bottle, I saw that instead of the beautiful, shiny stones that we had on the beach, we now had chalky, dull stones.  So, I scoured the internet again.  This time I learned that if I put some varnish on them, they would become shiny again.  I was happy because I at least had a place to start.

So, I headed out to Michael's and couldn't find an 8x10 unfinished picture frame which was very frustrating, but I think you'll agree soon that it was a blessing.  Instead, I found a large, flat wooden frame with a dark stain.  I decided to try it.  I found some glue for mosaic tile that dries clear and some black, sandy grout that I thought might work.

First Robbie sanded the frame a bit so it would hold the adhesive better (see, I have learned something from all that HGTV watching!).  Then, I got to work, despite not really knowing what the heck I was doing.  I glued and glued and glued.  It took me much longer to glue all the rocks on than I anticipated.  I could only do about 4 inches at a time because the glue was pretty thick stuff and it was hard to get it out of the bottle and my hands got really tired!  But I finally finished it!  After I was done, I decided that it would be better if I didn't grout it.  Since it's on the dark frame, I think that the darkness of the frame coming through the rocks looks nice.  (Plus there's an inner border of the frame that  I wasn't really sure how to cover with rocks, plus I don't really know how to grout, so the grout-less frame just kept looking better and better!)

Here is my finished product:

I'm pretty proud of it.

(Many thanks to Robbie for his help and to our babysitter/photographer, Abbie, who edited the photo for me to make it look even better in the frame!)