Story Stones

There are those ideas that you come across that capture your whole heart.  One day I was surfing the web for more ideas for storytelling and came upon Red Bird Crafts and Emily Neuburger.  Emily designed the coolest idea - story stones.  You must click over to her blog and take a peek at her story stones. 

These stones are so endearing and beautiful.  She has a great tutorial on how to make them.  She also sells them.  I am going to buy a set from her because there is nothing in the world like owning an original set - it will have Emily's special fairy dust!  

Anyway, I knew instantly, I had to make a set of story stones for several of the fairy tales that I bring to the classroom.  And - I knew I did not have the time to make the characters from scratch.  I used images I already had.  You can also search copyright free images in Google or Yahoo.

First I cut out the characters and selected the stones I would modge podge them on.

I put a coat of modge podge on the stone.

I positioned the character on top of the modge podge.

I applied a coat of modge podge on top and pressed the paper into the stone.

 One mistake I made was getting the modge podge too thick on some of the stones. This would spot the image.

This is a set of story stones drying.

I am so excited to have the children use the stones to tell stories.  I will report back how it goes!  I am going to make more this weekend.  And order a set of Emily's.  It will be like Christmas when they arrive!