Garden Stepping Stones

We made some sweet garden stepping stones a couple of months ago. It was a Mama-assist project for sure, but the kids loved it. We actually got a kit – mostly so we would have the molds to use for more stepping stones in our gardening future. It would be a simple project to do without the kit however. In fact my father-in-law told me he used the bottom of a five gallon bucket as a mold when he made stepping stones for his garden. I dabbled in stained glass for several years, so I have all kinds of broken glass pieces and this is the perfect way to use them up.

Simon and Gus embraced the project and wanted to dive in full boar and mix the concrete themselves (since that was the first step of the process) but that part of the process should be performed by the adult supervisor. Inhaling concrete powder is super dangerous. I let them do some mixing after I had pretty much wet the powder down completely. The concrete should be the consistency of brownie batter, so a bit lumpy, not too runny.

After we did our mixing we set the molds out on the deck to fill them. I just used a paint stir stick to stir the concrete and used it to scoop the lumpy goo into the mold as well.

The next step is to smooth the concrete out in the mold to make your stepping stone as flat as possible. We decided to see what would happen if we put glass on the bottom of the mold before we poured the concrete in as well and it ended up looking pretty neat  so if you plan to do that you should put the glass pieces in before pouring your concrete in – obviously.

This is what the glass filled bottom looked like when it was all said and done.

Next step is to place your glass pieces, marbles, rocks, broken plates, or whatever you might have laying around that you think might pretty up your stepping stones. We attempted some hand prints, which can be a little bit messy. We lubed Gussy’s hands up with a bunch of Vaseline so we could rinse the concrete off more easily. You have to make fairly deep impressions with your hands for them to actually show up when your stepping stone is dry.

We also put a dragonfly cut out on top of Simon’s stone and pieced glass around it so there would be a dragonfly shape in the stone. You could cut a piece of paper into any shape your heart desires and just lay it on top of the concrete and surround it with glass. It ended up looking pretty cute.

24 hours later…we had these…

Happy Crafting!