Make Your Own Concrete Stepping Stones

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 Do you wear shoes in the summer or do you prefer to go barefoot?

I walk around barefoot.

Because 1. It's cooler and 2. I have better balance. (see my other blog for more) 

What I really don't like is having to walk in wood mulch to tend to my plants. It's so irritating to have wood mulch stick to the bottom of your feet. Try getting the mulch off when you have balance issues. Hopefully, my neighbors don't think I'm tipsy.

 

 What I really needed were some stepping stones.

I was hoping to find the stepping stones, probably 20 years ago, which we placed in some areas in the backyard at our last house. 

Guess, we left them there, because they weren't in our garden storage.

Thankfully, we kept the molds when we moved. and Mr. DIY picked up a bag of concrete at  our local Lowe's Home Improvement. 

He bought an 80 pound bag of Sakrete high-strength concrete mix.

Before mixing the concrete, Mr. DIY coated the plastic stepping stone mold with Crisco.

Next, Mr. DIY mixed the concrete.

The bag of concrete only had directions for mixing the whole bag, so he winged it. He mixed about 22 small trowels full of mix in a bucked and added a few cups of water at a time and mixed it until it looked the right consistency. 

He started scooping the concrete mix into the mold, pressing the concrete into the bottom before he added more concrete

Once filled, he took a scrap piece of wood to level out the top (really, the bottom)

Once the top was leveled , he tapped the mold with the concrete in it several times to get the air bubbles out.

Here are the filled molds.

We let them dry for 24 hours, then popped them out of the molds.

For the rough edges, he used the trowel to knock the concrete off. 

It wasn't quite smooth, but they will be in the mulch and won't be seen. 

If I were going to give them away, we would sand the edges smooth.

They should even out in color as the concrete dries out more, but they are hard enough to use.

This was our first attempt at making stepping stones in a long while. We have enough concrete to make 4 more stepping stones. Next time we will tamp them a bit more and we might even tint the concrete.

This was a pretty easy project and it was a very inexpensive (cost of a bag of concrete).

If you have to buy molds, then that would add to the cost of the project. 

It would be a simple diy project you can do with your kids at home. 

Hope you and your family are well.

Have some fun doing an easy diy projects today!

Pam

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