31 Creative Stone Painting Ideas You Will Love

Are you new to rock and stone painting? Maybe you're an expert but looking for some new techniques to spice up your stone painting repertoire?

From easy stone painting designs to rock painting hacks anyone can do, I have a tone of great rock painting ideas and inspiration for you!

Sometimes when you first start stone painting with your kids (or by yourself!) it can feel overwhelming trying to decide what to paint.

If you don't have excellent drawing skills, it can also feel a bit defeating - but it doesn't have to be! Some of the stone painting ideas in this post require ZERO drawing skills.

Your rock painting group will be so impressed with your clever stone art and you will be, too.

Don't forget to pin this post to come back to later!

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Creative Stone Painting Ideas & Turorials You Will Love

Rainbow Ombre Mandala Rock
Elevate a plain rock into a mandala stone with a cool technique that will have your turning basic rocks into mandala rocks - with absolutely no painting skill required!

Gold Leaf Painted Rocks
Take your rock painting to the next level with this creative take on stone painting: gold leaf. The girls at Country Hill Cottage walk you though how to gold leaf a stone step by step!

Glitter Galaxy Painted Rock with Butterfly
This rock is cram packed with extra! First, the combination of paint blending with Glitterific paint to create a cool cosmic, galaxy look.

Second, the fancy silver butterfly with is actually a temporary tattoo. This makes this particular rock 100% easy for anyone of any skill level to paint!

Moon Landing Commemorative Painted Stone
The secret to this rock's amazing, out of this world look is a type of paint called Dragonfly Glaze. Pop over to the blog post on the DoodleCraft blog explaining how she painted this rock to learn al about this hot new craft supply!

Kindness Rocks with SVG Cut Outs

To make these painted stones, Angie cut inspirational messages out of vinyl on her craft cutter (think: Cricut or Silhouette), and use them to create different looks. Click the link above to see how she did it!

Fish Painted Rock with Glitter Scales

This fish painted stone tutorial features pretty color shifting water and a sparkly scales on this fish that reminds me of The Rainbow Fish.

Learn how to get these cool effects as well as how to draw a fish by clicking the link above!

Flamingo Painted Rock with Chalkology Transfer

Thinking outside the paintbrush, Michelle from Our Crafty Mom used one of her Chalkology transfers to put a cute flamingo on this painted rock!

Clever Dollar Store Stone Painting Hacks

Jessica from Mad in Crafts went a little crazy at the Dollar Store and came up with some really cool ways that you can use Dollar Store materials to paint rocks in different ways!

The rock above is painted using a tool I bet has never occurred to you but once you know about it, I can bet you'll be dying to try it yourself! Check out the post on her website for all the details

Watercolor Butterflies Painted Stone

If you have ever wondered if you can use watercolors on painted rocks, the answer is yes! To make it work, you need to basecoat the rock a specific way but then you can get pretty butterflies or flowers by using watercolors on top!

Dandelion Wish Kindness Rock

When you are new to painting rocks doing a detailed flower like this can feel overwhelming. Lucky for you, expert rock painter Adrianne breaks it down step-by-step to make it super easy.

Like her tutorial? She's also the author of Rock Painting for Beginners which is one of my all-time favorite rock painting books. Check it out on Amazon:

Stamped Manatee Painted Rock

I met Crafty Not Shifty in Phoenix at the beginning of this year and we made a Facebook Live video together demonstrating how to use Heffy Doodle Stamps to make cute painted rocks. It's so fun to see her playing more with stamps to create adorable stamped rocks.

Check out the Facebook live video I made with Crafty not Shift in Phoenix.

Magical Unicorn Painted Stones

Kara from Happy Go Lucky has a secret to getting perfect unicorns on her painted rocks - even if you have absolutely zero drawing skills! Click the link to check it out and then come back to read my list of the best tattoos to use on painted rocks.

Rainbow Paint Poured Rocks

I love the look of these two-tone paint poured rocks together in rainbow colors! This is not a hard technique to master and grouping rocks together like this in a rainbow makes an extra big impact. 

Stamped Word Stones

I love this dead simple approach to painted rocks that looks so cool! Even if you worry you don't have hand lettering, drawing or painting skills, you can still make cool painted stones with the help of stamps! Check out Michelle's tutorial at the link above.

If you love the idea of stamped stones, I also have my own stamping tutorial that will teach you how to use clear sheet stamps of rocks. 

This is a different look and a slightly different technique but still lets you use stamps to make up for any lack of hand-lettering or painting talent you might otherwise wish you had.

 

Sprakley Glitter Kindness Stone

My good friend and doodle artist, Jen Goode made this cute stone with my favorite glitter paint for rocks called Glitterific.

If you made a rock like Jen's, just make sure you seal it so the glitter doesn't become litter! I have detailed instructions on how to seal glitter painted rocks here!

Stenciled Unicorn Painted Rock

Using a fabric stencil, Carissa made this magical unicorn painted rock. This is a fun way to create many of the same type of rock or to help supplement lack of independent drawing skills. 

Blended Rainbow Stone

The thing I especially like about this particular painted stone is not just that it has a rainbow (rainbows ARE my favorite), but that Sarah managed to get a really stunning rainbow ombre even while using paint pens.

If you want to use your Posca pens but still have magical, rainbow ombre effects, check out Sarah's tutorial above.  

Thanks for stopping by! 

Don't forget to paint these inspirational stone painting ideas for later!

For more inspirational stone painting ideas, check out these collections:

45 Magical Unicorn Rock Painting Ideas

100+ Kindness Rock Painting Ideas and Sayings

Easy Rock Painting Ideas for Beginners

About the Author:

Carissa is a lifelong crafter and mom of two creative boys. 

The owner and lead writer of both I Love Painted Rocks and Creative Green Living, she has won multiple awards for her craft writing including the Craftys Award for the "Best Craft Blogger" category in 2016 and the ShiftCon award for "Best DIY blogger" in 2018. 

Her projects have been featured in magazines like Kids Crafts 1-2-3, Country Sampler Farmhouse Style and more.