Stepping Stones Part 1
Garden paths may bring a little romance into your backyard, but if you've tried selecting stepping-stones, you know that many of them look alike...and they're not cheap. This article can help you to create your own stepping-stones to make a garden path of your own!

Posted Wednesday, April 5, 2006

Garden paths need to be durable, to withstand the tests of the various seasons, the rains, the snow, the beating heat of the summer, so it is in your best interest to use concrete to make your stepping stones when building a garden path. Here are the materials that you will need to gather up to get started on building your stepping stones: Pie tins with depth of 2 inches you can find these in any retail center, dollar store or in your cupboard if you have purchased premade pies, Grease or cooking spray, any cooking type is fine, Mortar color; the color that you want to make your stepping stones, 6-8 cups Quikrete or any name brand easy make concrete, Straight Edge or Rolling Pin Leaves, Branches, Flowers, Glass, anything you might like to use to decorate your stepping stones with.

Let's get started on making your stepping stones: Coat the inside of the pie tins well with the grease or oil that you have gathered up. Mix the mortar color and water, if you want a stepping-stone with a tone other than grey or you can use grey if you like. Keep mixing until you get an even, rich color through out the concrete that you are going to use to make the stepping stones. Put on your facemask for your breathing protection, and get ready for some exercise! Put 6-8 cups of Quikrete in a bucket, and then add the water/mortar color mixture slowly to the Quikrete. Add the water until the mixture gets to the texture of cookie dough, a nice, dry and crumbly mixture that is easy to work with. Keep pouring in the water, but do it slowly, until you get the texture of wet cookie dough. Pour the mixture into your pie tins. In order to get a straight top, use a straight edge to level the top of the stone. Gently knock about in the pie pan, mixing the concrete to release air bubbles.

Now the fun part! You could let your stone dry completely as is, in order to make plain stepping stones, or you can start pressing leaves, flowers, pieces of tile or glass into the stone to enhance its texture and color. Keep in mind that dense flowers make a more definite impression than delicate flowers in the top of your stepping stone. Let your stones sit for 24 hours. Remove the stones from the pie tins. The results are spectacular. If you have leaves or flowers in your stone, gently pull them away now they?ll create a wonderful imprint. If a leaf sticks, you can use a wire brush to clean it out, or just set your stones up outside, and Mother Nature will take care of decomposing the leaf.