"Painting Rocks" by Laura Baker - a fantastic summertime artsy activity, and a brill book now available from Studio Press

As the lovely weather continues, we've managed to escape to the seaside at least once...
We do love a bit of salty sea air, when it's not populated by stinky barbecues ponging up the beach of course! We also love beach activities that are good for spending a few hours in between scoffing our picnic and paddling in the sea.

I had no idea that something I'd been surreptitiously doing for years was now actually a 'thing' but yep, apparently decorating, painting and drawing on pebbles then hiding them on the beach is definitely a neat new trend and it's catching fire on social media even as we type.

So Laura Baker is bang on trend with her "Painting Rocks" book full of inspirational ideas so you can also join in with this fun and fascinating activity.

So what do you need? Well, some pebbles and rocks of course...

Inspirational quotes to hide under a rock. Love the idea of these

Then you can break out your favourite pens, pencils, paints and permanent markers (we do love our collection of multicoloured Sharpies for this type of thing as they dry really quickly and offer good coverage - just don't inhale those fumes, eek!)

You don't have to visit the seaside to join in. You can find and hide rocks wherever you live!

We really loved the character stones in this book, such fab fun to design and draw, then hide for an unsuspecting passer-by to hopefully discover.

High contrast designs such as these glorious mono / greyscale ones really work well

A fabulous little activity book this, and it's the perfect size to tuck into your seaside or picnic bag.

"Painting Rocks" by Laura Baker is out now, published by Studio Press (kindly supplied for review).