Rocks...and more

 In 2023 & 2024 I had Sssid, the Rock Snake outside my home.  Sssid encouraged people to paint rocks and place them along the sidewalk.

People definitely participated.  If I recall correctly, I had something over 100 rocks placed each year.  Some clearly painted by little kids, some truly mini works of art.

I wanted to do something different last year, so I created kindness rocks.  (Truth be told, I'd been painting and distributing small numbers of kindess rocks throughout my neighborhood for over a year by this time.)

I clearly had NO IDEA when I started what this would grow into.  By the time I stopped in September, I had distributed almost 600 rocks!!  99% of those were rocks I had painted.  I had to first find rocks of the appropriate size, rocks that relatively smooth on at least one size so they could be written on.  Then I painted all the rocks, on both sides, with a lavender outdoor paint I had, and then I could write on them.  On one side (what I considered the back) of every rock I had written Kindess rocks!  On the other I'd written various little sayings encouraging people to be kind.  

This year I did not want to do the same thing, although I do want to send a similar message.  IMHO the world really needs people who consciously put kindness and caring into the world.  Every day.  In both large and small ways, but probably focusing mainly on 1-1 interactions.  So I have a concept that I'm working on.

Have a heart.  

I haven't yet worked out exactly what my sign will say.  Something on the order of "Find a heart, make a heart, have a heart."  But I am most assuredly NOT making many hundreds of hearts.  These little woven hearts are the start.  I intend to walk along the beach - when we actually have some decent weather - and hope to find vaguely heart-shaped rocks.  I plan to get some polymer clay and make and bake some hearts.  I hope I can find some natural items (pine cones?  acorn caps?  other things I haven't yet thought of) that I can use a dab of hot glue to stick together in roughly heart shapes.  Leaves or flowers would be great, but they will blow away too easily.  

I want part of the message to absolutely be for others to find and/or make hearts and leave them here to share with others.  I'd kind of hate my sign to say something like 'please take only one' (I know for a fact that plenty of people took more than one rock last year), but I don't know what the best words are yet.  I'd love your suggestions.