Easily make garden stepping stones

During the winter when you’re aching for a garden project to keep you busy, garden stepping stones for a path fit the bill. You can buy a garden stone kit like the one shown below, but you don’t get many thick stones out of these kits. It’s less expensive to make a bunch of garden stones yourself then to go with a store bought DIY kit and it’s pretty easy too – the only major tool needed is a small jigsaw and if you use molds, not even that.

Gather:

• Small jigsaw
• Measuring tape + pencil
• Concrete form tube
• Mortar
• Some sort of mortar drop cloth or a basic old shower curtain you’re done with.
• Stone decor – i.e. you could make plain garden stones, but little pieces of glass, smooth rocks, natural rocks from the river, marbles, bits of tile and more add some bling to your stones. Make sure you wash all your decor items well because you don’t want to place dirty rocks or what have you into your garden stones.
• A small trowel

Get ready:

Measure your concrete forms to the desired thickness. For example, if you want 2 inch thick stones measure for that. You don’t want them too thick or thin because you don’t want them too heavy or too breakable. 2-3 inches is decent.

Cut your form tube with the jigsaw – remember to cut more than one tube; you’ll want however many garden stones you’ll be making. I.e. five stones = five tubes. IF you don’t have a small jigsaw see if a friend or your local home improvement store can cut your concrete form tube for you. Another option is to not use a concrete form tube at all. You can use other molds. Visit Mold Warehouse for tons of cool molds for garden stones.

Mix your mortar – follow directions on the package. As a general rule your mortar is too runny if it all runs off and too thick if it clumps to the trowel. You want a smooth, spreadable consistency that’s NOT quite pourable.

Make your garden stones:

• You’re going to make one at a time from start to finish or the mortar will get too dry to press stones into.
• Place a drop cloth down, with your cut form tube on top. Scoop mortar into your cut form tube. Press down your mortar or you’ll get air bubbles. After packing it down well, smooth out the top so that it’s nice and level.
• Press your decor of choice in. Say you’re using river rocks – press rocks in while the mortar is wet and you can try random patterns or an actual design. You could even make stones with your family’s initials. Make sure the rocks are pressed in so that the top of the rocks are level with the top surface of the mortar. IF you’re using an item like broken glass, press it carefully in so that no rough sharp edges stick out. Because mortar will shrink back a bit, I’d suggest using glass rocks or marbles over broken glass. My friend made these with recycled broken glass and two of the stones ended up cutting people. Not safe!
• Besides using other decor, you can use your hands or your kids hands as seen in the image above.
• Repeat until all your stones are made, allow the forms to sit undisturbed for 48 hours.

Place your stones in the garden come spring – or sooner if you like. This is a cool project to do with kids too. Especially if you get smaller rocks and allow them to create unique designs in the mortar. NOTE: if your kid is so young that he’s still into sticking stuff into his mouth, he’s too young for this project.

[Image via: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oddharmonic/ / CC BY-SA 2.0]