Bringing a little piece of Vegas home – My Valley of Fire Souvenir
I love going to Vegas. For me, it’s only a 2 hour or so flight from Texas and I usually go a couple of times a year.
Why do I love Vegas so much? Well I don’t gamble nor do I drink, but I do love the shows and sitting by the resort pools and relaxing. There’s also a ton to do outside the Strip if you’re feeling adventurous.
Vegas is really being built up and these past few years I’ve seen tremendous growth. They’ve now got a dedicated football team and I believe a baseball team as well! In fact, it’s so lucrative that I’ve been seriously considering purchasing a property there because I go there so often! Other than their water shortage issue, I think Vegas seems like a solid city to escape to.
Any who, this past week I was in Vegas to escape for a while after being cooped up in the home for months. We stayed at the Polo Towers resort for the most part but we decided to take a day and venture over to the Valley of Fire State Park.
The park was beautiful and breathtaking! I was in awe at the formation of these red boulders. It was a great sight to see. I didn’t think that pictures did it justice.
So I decided to take re-home some of the small rocks I found while exploring. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with them just yet but my crafty mind started churning up some ideas 🙂
Taking these rocks home definitely added a good 20 pounds onto my carry-on on my flight back home but it was worth it! When I did finally get home, i noticed that the rocks were a bit brittle and any small scrape they’d let off dust.
Also, I had some polyurethane coating left over and ended up using that and a smooth foam brush to paint the rocks with a layer.
I did this because I wanted to “seal” the rocks so that they would not dust up from being scratched or handled. I actually liked the way the polyurethane made the red on the rocks pop. The smaller one turned out a brighter red than the larger one which made the color coordination look really nice together 🙂
Once I let that dry, I went and picked out some leftover faux succulents I had and some green Styrofoam from a previous craft project and started putting together a little succulent display.
I used nail glue to secure them together into the Styrofoam and let that dry for a few hours along with the painted rocks.
Once everything dried, I started putting together the rocks and mini planters until I was happy with a combination display I liked. I then went on to gluing everything together and let that sit for a few more hours.
So I wasn’t really happy that the Styrofoam stuck out like a sore thumb (personally, it looked a little tacky). I went out in my backyard and searched for a handful of pebbles that were somewhat red and that I could use to glue on to hide the Styrofoam.
And here’s the final result:
What do y’all think? 🙂 Did this turn out nicely? Thought it came out pretty great! Especially considering the rocks were free and I used left over crafting materials for the rest. I now have my little masterpiece on display by my kitchen sink window so that I can be reminded of the good times I had in Vegas at the Valley of Fire State Park 🙂
Hope you liked post! Please comment or subscribe if you like my content!