Painted rocks have been appearing and spreading positivity to local people, giving them the opportunity to become a part of a friendly scheme for people to quite literally pass on a smile.
The scheme sees people join their local ‘Rocks’ Facebook pages, where they can paint rocks with a message, character or picture, place them in their local area and wait until a passer-by spots it and re-hides it, letting a new person come across the rock. This is unless, of course, they fall in love with the rock and choose to take it home as a keepsake.
The founders of two local ‘Rocks’ groups — Lexy Ness McConnell from Camelford Rocks, and Vicky Hawkins from Bude Rocks — explained the purpose of the scheme.
Lexy, from Camelford, was inspired to create her own ‘Rocks’ page after seeing friends from Norfolk posting pictures on Facebook about painting rocks with #happy written on them during the summer holidays.
She said: “I was curious as to what they were doing, so I investigated and they belonged to a group called Norfolk Rocks. The aim was to decorate rocks, hide them and then make someone smile when they find them. On further investigation, I found lots of other rock pages and the main one, I believe, is Love on the Rocks UK.”
She added: “I thought it was such a lovely idea, I wanted to get on board with it and start it locally. I found a Love on the Rocks Cornwall Facebook page and Kernow Rocks page, but they all seemed to be placing their rocks a little too far away to interest people in Camelford, so I decided to start a Camelford Rocks page and invited lots of people, who in turn invited lots more. I seem to get a lot of requests from people to join daily, so I really think it’s taken off here!”
Vicky, from Bude, wanted to get involved after, similarly to Lexy, spotting the scheme on another page, called ‘Fairford Rocks’.
She said: “I showed it to my children, girls aged ten and seven, and they were enthralled with the idea. That rainy afternoon, we grabbed some pebbles from the garden and drew on them with Sharpie pens.
“Soon after, some friends came to visit from Suffolk, saw the rocks and we got chatting about the Fairford Rocks page. It then became apparent that rock hiding is very popular in many places, including Aldeburgh, Suffolk.”
According to Lexy, rock hiding began with a project in the USA, The Kindness Rocks Project, which aimed to spread positivity and kindness to people across the country. Basing Camelford Rocks on this, she began her page.
Lexy said: “It really does work. Finding a rock with a work of art or an inspirational quote on it makes my day and I find myself smiling from ear to ear. Lots of people have told me that finding a rock has made theirs or their children’s day, so that in itself makes me happy.”
Meanwhile, Vicky had taken some advice from the Fairford Rocks page after messaging them on Facebook, to create an ‘open’ page so that people could post cryptic photographs when hiding the rocks and, likewise, when finding the rocks too.
Having trialed some artistic pebbles with her daughters, Vicky decided to expand their creativity and decorated more rocks to hide them during the Bude at War weekend in September.
She said: “The children took great delight in hiding stones around the Crooklets area while everyone else was gazing skywards at the planes flying past at the end of the display. We sat by the beach huts for a while and saw, to my daughters’ delight, a few people find their rocks.”
After the event, Vicky’s daughters decorated more rocks and they hid them along a long walk via the canal path, the Downs and Pepperpot. A
pouting pirate rock, initially hidden in the Pepperpot, was found twice and both the ‘finders’, as Vicky calls them, posted photographs of the rock to the Bude Rocks Facebook page.
She added: “The youngest artist in the family was delighted to see her pouting pirate had been found.”
Vicky said: “The idea behind it has grown for us as a family. What started off as a bit of fun has developed into time spent together as a family. Everyone is involved now, including my husband, who it turns out can draw a fabulous Chihuahua! We have enjoyed getting out and about to hide the rocks together.
“Last weekend, it was drizzly and we could easily have stayed in at home watching TV, but the children were desperate to drop off more rocks.
“In essence, it has also taught us that we can brighten someone’s day through the simple action of hiding a rock. In the space of a few weeks, over 100 people have ‘liked’ the page and there has been a big increase of people interacting with photographs.
“Of the 50, plus, rocks we have hidden, only a fraction have been highlighted on the page. We’re hoping more people will join in with hiding them over the coming weeks.”
Lexy explained that a long line of ladybug painted rocks was started along Southend sea front, which has inspired her to look into doing the same thing, but with painted camels on the rocks instead. However, more preparation is to be carried out before Camelfordians spot any camel rocks yet.
She is also hoping to introduce a Camelford Rocks litter pick, having noticed the increase in rubbish and litter lying around the town. She said: “I would like to make it coincide with rock hunting and hiding for people, and hopefully people can begin to feel proud to live in Camelford again — perhaps this would be something to do in the spring time though. I have some other ideas as well, it’s just finding the time, so I am trying to recruit some more admin to bounce ideas off of.”
Vicky also has plans for the future of Bude Rocks. She is hoping to create an event on her Facebook page over the October half term, with a theme of decorating rocks with autumnal and Hallowe’en images and words, giving families and their children a focus and activity to be a part of during their time off school.
Bude and Camelford rocks have not just stayed in their original areas — far from it.
In fact, one lady posted to Camelford Rocks recently with pictures of a rock from the group, which had been found in Kos, Greece.
Meanwhile, Vicky told the Post that they were very surprised to have found that two Bude Rocks had managed to travel all the way to Florida after being found at Castle Combe.
Vicky added: “In essence, it is an art project designed to raise a smile, encourage everyone to be creative and to get outdoors.”
To join Camelford Rocks, visit www.facebook.com/camelfordrocks, and to take a look at Bude Rocks, visit www.facebook.com/buderocks
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