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Some of the most fun and amusing pet rock crafts involving leaving your "pet" as a plain rock but creating traditional pet accessories for it. Make your rock a leash and collar from thick leather by cutting thin strips (use a cutting mat and craft knife for precision) and attaching a buckle to the collar (available where leather crafting supplies are sold). If you want to give your pet a particularly tough look, attach pointy metal rivets to the collar (you can get these with other leather craft supplies or at stores aimed at punk fashion, like Hot Topic).
Make a food dish for your pet rock from earthenware or polymer clay. Be sure to paint it with his name--an acrylic red paint with white lettering will give it a classic look, as will sculpting the dish with slanted edges like those on a "no tip" dog bowl. Fill the bowl with small pebbles to represent the type of "meat" a pet rock might eat.
You can also display your pet rock with a "beware of rock" sign. Paint this on a small wooden board with rough, black lettering and hang it or stand it up near your pet rock. -
If you want to go a different route with your pet rock, you can decorate your rock to look just like a real pet. The best rocks to use for this kind of project are usually smooth, rounded stones like river rocks.
You can paint your pet rock with the face, colors and features of a favorite petl. The best paint to use for this is a high-quality acrylic, as it will adhere well to the rock and have good sheen and color. To paint an animal onto the shape of a rounded rock, imagine that the animal has wrapped its limbs, paws and tail around itself and tucked its head in to form the balled-up shape like a rock. This will look especially lifelike if you paint the rock to look like a curled up, sleeping animal.
When painting, you can choose to design your rock with just the primary features of an animal by painting just the facial features in a dark paint (leaving the color and texture of the rock visible), or you can first give the rock a coat of base paint in animal fur colors. If painting fur, choose a pattern of colors that's easily recognizable as a pet markings to help your rock be identified as a pet. Good choices for a cat include patchy black, white and brown spots or dark and light orange stripes, while certain dog breeds will have very distinctive markings like the brown and black spots on white as seen on beagles and basset hounds.
If you like, you can glue some features to your pet rock to make it stick out. Attach a tuft of craft fur or a strip of leather to give your pet a little more character, or glue on some felt ears (great for a mouse) or whiskers made from bits of fishing line. Be sure to use a strong craft glue, like Gorilla Glue, Goop or a quick-set epoxy.
