How to Make Shiny Gemstone Paperweights

With Winter break coming soon, many parents will need activities to occupy children during their three to four week vacation from school. This project will help fill those hours and maybe even help children make presents for their loved ones.

This project involves using simple, commonly found items such as smooth rocks and clear nail polish to make shiny, gemstone-like paperweights. The paperweights may also be used simply for decorating places such as gardens or terrariums. If you would like you can use large stones, once you have made them shine they will serve as interesting and attractive book ends.

Begin this project by procuring a small bowl or pie pan, a bottle of clear nail polish, sheets of newspaper and several smooth stones. The smooth stones can be any color: black river rocks will become shiny like obsidian and quartz will sparkle like a gemstone. The stones can be any shape but flat ones will require less water and clear nail polish.

After you have gathered all necessary supplies fill the bowl with enough water to submerge the stones you have chosen. Add one drop of clear nail polish for every ounce of water in the bowl. Then stir the solution until well blended. Be sure to lay out the sheets of newspaper with one layer to protect your work surface under the bowl of solution and another section of several sheets of newspaper piled up to serve as a drying area for the dipped stones.

Submerge each rock in the solution for roughly fifteen seconds, remove them and place them on the newspaper to dry. You may wish to keep a small paintbrush handy to touch up any spots on the rocks that were blemished by your fingers when you removed the rocks from the solution.

Make sure to allow each rock plenty of time to dry to avoid marring its shiny surface, approximately one hour. If you would like you can speed up the process by drying the rocks with a hair dryer that is set on a cool or no heat setting.

The project allows for much variation as you may use many different types of rocks, this will help you keep more than one child occupied at a time. If you would like to add even more variation you can use a bright colored nail polish to paint designs or words on the rocks before you submerge them in the shine solution. Make sure to allow your design to dry completely before you dip the rock in the shine solution to prevent the design from running.