How We Made Stepping Stone Walkway From Ice Cream Buckets.
We had already purchased molds from Lowe`s that made this pattern. We are using this pattern that will come off the back porch and out to our sitting area with burn pit and adding two hammock chairs. We did not want everything to be matched, so we had to figure what kind of pattern we wanted. My hubby is building A bigger shop, that is why everything is in the yard. In the process of cleaning out the old shed we had A lot of empty ice cream buckets and knew someday we would use them for something.
First step,,tear out old walkway.
Second step, cut of bottoms of ice cream buckets at about same distance for all and cover inside of mold with a film of oil so the concrete does not stick and mold will slide much easier.
Then lay them out in the pattern you want, fill with cement and let it cure enough so it will stay together when you take them out of mold, we just used the handles and pulled them off and it worked pretty good.
The next day we added sand between the blocks. They are pretty level, but we are going to let them sit for about two or three weeks and go back and level them out again.
This is what it looks like so far, I put in some shells, bits of glass etc. for A little color here and there.
I will post pics when it is all finished,, but all in all we love it.
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Pam Mork on Feb 25, 2024
It's possible you could get two molds from each bucket. Sizes might be a little different. You can also use small cardboard flats from canned good, or cut small cardboard boxes to the depth you want -- line them with plastic shopping bags. This worked well when we were making stepping stones.
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I would like to try that .But I don't eat ice cream any more. Where did you get all the buckets ?
Glad you could upcycle buckets and make work for you. My thought if buckets not available aren’t other materials available? Wondering taking one or two buckets, slice and turn into strips. Shape strips into a walkway feature (a circle or star for instance) then pour concrete. Thanks for inspiration
What did you use to cut the heavy plastic ice cream buckets?