Stepping stones are very decorative elements that you can display in your garden. You can make paths with them, surrounding areas with plants that you want to make more visible, or simply place them around your yard in a random order. The main material you use to make stepping stones is cement or plaster, but the decorations that you use on top of it come from an almost infinite spectrum.
The materials you’ll need to make stepping stones to display in your garden are:
-Ready to mix concrete, I normally use Quikrete, because it is cheap and easy to handle, one bag of 60 lb cost me in Home Depot 2.99 dollars.
-Chicken wire, or a special sheet for helping drying and holding cement.
-A sturdy bucket or container to mix the concrete.
-A hardy spatula or piece of wood or pole to help mixing the concrete.
-Molds; we can buy the molds in every crafts store, but they can be a little pricey. My advice is check around your house, and you’ll find many things that can be used as molds for stepping stones; I use plastic storage containers, aluminum pans, and my best, round plant saucers. Go to a Dollar Store and check out in the storage or kitchen gadgets section, and you’ll find plenty of possible molds. They must be a little flexible and deep enough.
-Decorations for the top of the stepping stones; here is where your artistic aptitude can be shown, because you have to find items to place over the concrete. Again, visit the Dollar Store, or Wal-Mart, and use stones, marbles or shells. You can use tile or glass as well. Anything hardy enough can be used as decoration for a stepping stone. Don’t use wood, though, because it will get wt and will rot.
That is all the material you need to make a stepping stone. Now, you must follow these steps:
-Mix the concrete with water; the Quikrete concrete bags don’t have printed the instructions for this craft, so you must start pouring some concrete and mix it with a little water. Keep going until you have enough mix, and until it looks as cookie dough.
IMPORTANT: Use gloves and a mask when you handle concrete; the contact of concrete with your skin is very dangerous, as well its inhalation. Be very careful with your eyes too, would be appropriate to use safety glasses.
-Spray the mold with cooking spray, to make easier later to take off the stepping stone.
-Pour half of the concrete mix on the mold.
-Place a piece of chicken wire or concrete sheet over the mix, to avoid cracks.
-Pour the rest of the concrete.
Now you must let the mix rest and set down. It is better to fill the molds in an area where they can stay until they dry, because they will be heavy and difficult to move.
After a couple of hours, we can start placing the decorations over the concrete mix. You can do some simple, and place some shells or marbles on it. The hands and paws prints are also very popular. Some people use bottoms, beads or stones. Others use tile or glass. Stained glass can make truly art pieces of stepping stones. You can find on EBay books of patters to follow for your stepping stone, or search online. I wouldn’t buy the stained glass or tiles in a craft store, because they are pricey. Instead, I will buy some tiles we like in Home Depot or Lowe’s, and break them. We can use also broken beer glass bottles as substitution of the pieces of stained glass.
You must let the stepping stone rest for some time, it won’t be ready to handle for around four days, and you better don’t pour it out of the mold until after a couple of weeks. Some people place the stepping stones over the washing machine during a couple of cycles, because that will rid off the bubbles.
After a couple of weeks, you can pour out the stepping stone off the mold, be careful it doesn’t fall on the floor or over your feet.
Stepping stones are a very easy and cheap craft, you can share it with your children, and it is a nice way to decorate your garden.
