There are those ideas that you come across that capture your whole heart.  One day I was surfing the web for more ideas for storytelling and came upon Red Bird Crafts and Emily Neuburger.  Emily designed the coolest idea – story stones.  You must click over to her blog and take a peek at her story stones.

These stones are so endearing and beautiful.  She has a great tutorial on how to make them.  She also sells them.  I am going to buy a set from her because there is nothing in the world like owning an original set – it will have Emily's special fairy dust!
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Anyway, I knew instantly, I had to make a set of story stones for several of the fairy tales that I bring to the classroom.  And – I knew I did not have the time to make the characters from scratch.  I used images I already had.  You can also search copyright free images in Google or Yahoo.
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First I cut out the characters and selected the stones I would modge podge them on.

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I put a coat of modge podge on the stone.
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I positioned the character on top of the modge podge.
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I applied a coat of modge podge on top and pressed the paper into the stone.
One mistake I made was getting the modge podge too thick on some of the stones. This would spot the image.

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This is a set of story stones drying.

I am so excited to have the children use the stones to tell stories.  I will report back how it goes!  I am going to make more this weekend.  And order a set of Emily's.  It will be like Christmas when they arrive!