A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Banter Hall Need help for rock collection ideas

My son is obsessed with rocks. Everywhere we go he picks up rocks. He spends his outside time digging in the vacant lot next us. He has literally thousands of rocks. There are numerous boxes, bags and piles of rocks everywhere. I would like to display them somehow in his bedroom. I've tried shadow boxes but the weight of the rocks is too much. He loves his rocks and would love to have them displayed somehow I just can't figure out how to do it practically. I would like to have them encased somehow so I don't have a thousand rocks constantly collecting dust. Most of the rocks are 3 inches and smaller. His larger rocks are displayed on a couple of shelves. He has a Cindy Granny and Bill shelf with rocks they have given him and a shelf of rocks he has collected. If any of you have ideas I would love to hear them.

what about those stackable display cases with the clear fronts they use for match box cars? or the clear drawer bins that are stackable in the hardware section?

That's a good idea to look into. We just had a Harbor Freight store that opened close by that would probably have some good bins. I was thinking of getting a couple of large clear glass vases and filling them up and putting them on each of the nightstands next to my bed. When he gathers his rocks he always has 'special' ones he wants me to keep. If I put the vases next to the bed he could put my special ones in there as he gathered them. There would still be plenty to display in his room after that, too.

I was (and still am) a rock collector. I displayed mine in an old wooden bookcase. Not much to find in Nashville except fossils. We have them everywhere. Most of the fossils are about 550 million years old. Mussels, snails, and coral.

Rachel,
Much better idea to get bins and I love the vase idea- go to a thrift store for vases, I get lots of really pretty ones there and if it breaks it's no big deal.... my son was a collector too- I found out the hard way one day - he had emptied his dresser drawers- put clothes under his bed.. filled drawers with rocks... lots of rocks- broke the drawers completely.... we got a cheap bookcase after that and put them in bins ... he finally outgrew the idea he had to keep every rock... now my grands bring me rocks and I use them in my flower pots ... Derek has decided to paint and color on the rocks he finds lately-- makes faces on them....
Maybe a big water jug, the 5 gal ones would work too- course you could never move it once it was even half full but I think you could put it on a plant dolly ...
Nana

That sounds familiar. All of my plants are covered on the top with his rocks. We have an Old Time Pottery story here that always has some really pretty vases really cheap. I guess this just gives me a good excuse to go shopping! I've got to do something with all these rocks before it gets out of hand. Our porch is covered right now from what he brought home yesterday. Our garage is full with some really huge ones he brought in a couple weeks ago. They were so big I had to forbid him getting anymore that size. They could have really hurt him.

Rachel, we live a few minutes away from a crushed rock quarry and a rock fill pit, the fun he'd have in there

You'd need another whole house for storage.

That's so sweet how he gives the 'special' ones to you and how you keep them to show.

My wife has a whole purse full of SPECIAL rocks our 6-year-old grandson gives her to carry with her. The purse weighs almost 10 pounds now.

I don't know much about rocks...even though my grandfather was a collector. He was a geologist/surveyor. I remember when we were younger how we'd sneak in the back room to play with some of them

After checking out those sites...we should all start collecting and selling

my older sister was the rock hound in our family, and i was the enabler. still after all these years away from her i will stop and pick up a rock i think she might like or one i want to know what it is. does Brennan have a good rock reference book?
about 15 years ago my husband said, with this forlorn look on his face, Honey, can some of these rocks go back outside now? LOL!

My poor baby got his heart broken tonight. I had to give him the bad news. The vacant lot next door has been his digging field since we moved here. He spends hours there digging for rocks. He believes they are all diamonds. He even said he was going to get enough to make Cindy Granny a 'real diamond tiara'. Well, today they dropped off a dozer in that lot and are going to start digging a basement for a house in the morning. When I told him he cried uncontrollably. Jeremy was even on the internet buying us season passes to King's Island and that didn't even console him.

He was so pitiful. I felt so sorry for him. It's going to be a big issue for the next few days atleast. I've got to figure out something to appease him. Maybe I can have them dump the extra dirt in our backyard. Jeremy would just love that.

I told him he could do that, but I worry about the huge hole that will be there.

It would keep him occupied longer than the swingset and sandbox, too. But, you know Jeremy....that just wouldn't look neat and orderly.

Rachel, I know you are really busy, but if you or Jeremy want a weekend craft project here is an idea for Brennan's rocks.....I want to make several of these for the next craft show..........
If you can find old windows from a dump or salvage place, build a box for it and hinge it on one side, like a shadow box. Then Home Depot or Lowes has pre-made table legs and brackets to install them with. So you have a shadow box/end table! I have about 15 windows I have been collecting and just now figured out what to do with them.......now just gotta get the time! Just a thought!

Rachel ~ all of the ideas mentioned so far would be terrific! I don't have any to add, unfortunately. When Maxi started collecting rocks at 2, he'd fill his pockets with them and/or give them to me. He'd fill his little dump trucks and drive them around the house. Whenever I did laundry, I'd put them in a bag and on our next walk would take them outside and return them to the place he'd picked them up.

A neighbor had a favored gravel driveway where Maxi loved to pick up rocks every day. I can't tell you how heartbroken he was when the man paved over all that gravel! He stood there at the end of the drive wailing "my rocks! my rocks!" I always took the rocks back to the driveway because I figured if Maxi swiped some every single day, sooner or later that entire drive of gravel would be inside my house!



Now his collection is much more discriminating, thank goodness!

He just keeps them all in a curio cabinet... with a few in my table fountain and a couple in a special bowl on my dresser.



Merme

Thanks for the great ideas everybody. I've still not quite decided what to do with them all.