You can even hide these colourful rock homes in public areas to bring a smile to a stranger's face. Spreading happiness is something you'll never take for granite.

Whether you’re in isolation, out of isolation, away on holiday, or avoiding the wet weather outside, here’s a little family fun – painting rocks to look like houses.

Traditionally, this is an activity that is done with smooth flying saucer-like rocks. Since tiny chunks of quartz are all that I can find in the area and raiding the neighbour’s pebble garden is absolutely not an option, I had to come up with an alternative.

Why don’t I just make my own rocks? I could do this with air-dry clay, couldn’t I? Watch the video and find out how I did this.

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Note: To speed up the air-drying process store the clay in a warm, dry place. To speed up the paint drying process you can blow-dry the painted clay with a hairdryer.

Amazing afterthought: One of my kids suggested coating the rock homes with a clear glaze such as Liquitex, to ensure the paint doesn’t chip or wash away. She was also thinking that by doing this the rock homes could be used as drink coasters.

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With your hands, shape a clump of air-dry clay into a ball. Press the ball under a small plate to flatten it into a rough disc shape. Allow the clay two to three days to fully dry.

Paint the surface of the clay disc to resemble a house front. You can paint a door, window, roof, a garden pot under the window, or anything else you’d like to add. Allow the paint time to dry.

Display your little rock home on the mantel. If everyone in the family makes their own rock home, you can have a small village on display.