Polished Stones (The Easy Way)

Kids and Stones 

I don't know what this is with kids and stones - no matter where we go with our kids, they always find some nice stones they want to take home. In the meantime we have a huge pile of stones at our house. But as soon as the stones are in our home they are a lot less interesting. Mainly because they were often wet when found and looked much better then. As soon as they are dry they look dull and interesting textures are much less visible.

Grinding Stones?

At some stores you can buy nicely polished, smooth stones which look really great. Wouldn't it be cool, if you could turn the stones found yourself into such beauties? I thought grinding stones can't be that difficult, but as it turned out, it takes days to get a nice effect and you obviously need a machine doing that.

So I looked for an alternative...

Wet Stones Look Great! What About Clear Coating?

So wet stones look great. Could one get the same effect with painting them with clear coat?

I tried it, and it works great! I found some cheap clear coat that said it could be used for stones, but I guess you can use nearly any glossy clear coat. We washed our stones with water and a brush and waited until they were completely dry again. Then we painted one side of the stones and after the clear coat had dried we turned them around and painted the other side.

This is a before/after photo (taken after finishing the first side):

And this is the final result. The method also works for stones with a rough surface.