Homemade Stepping Stones

6 Materials
Making your own stepping stones is an easy and fun way to have a unique and artistic twist in your garden or yard. You can re-purpose discarded materials into something new and beautiful again. It's super easy to transform part of your yard into a paradise of creative energy. Click here to see how we turned ours into a gorgeous, one of a kind patio.




The first thing you'll need to do to make your own stepping stones, is to get some paver molds. Click here to see the ones we used. afflnk. It's easiest to create a patio with square molds, but there are many shapes of molds available.





Mix up some concrete for the molds. You'll want to use quickcrete so it sets up quickly. If you just want to make one paver, you can get small boxes of concrete from your local craft store, but they are much more expensive. In our community, a box of concrete for one stone is $8 and a bag of quickcrete, 80 lbs. is $4. If you use an 80 pound bag of quickcrete, you can make 26 stepping stones.


If you are planning to do a whole patio like we did, I suggest you get 26 of the same shape molds because it's really hard to divide bags of concrete. You can also get bigger molds to make larger stones.


Mix your concrete in a wheelbarrow or bucket, and make sure to rinse everything clean as soon as you are done filling your molds so the concrete doesn't set up on your tools.





Next, you need to fill your molds with a couple of scoops of wet concrete.





Then drop the mold several times on your surface to flatten the material and get out the air bubbles. Now you are ready to create. You will have about 20-30 minutes to make your creations before they start to set.





You can use any type of material in your stones. We used a lot of broken glass. Make sure you put all the sharp edges of the glass down into the concrete so your stones won't have sharp edges exposed.






You can create with pretty much anything you can imagine. We got many rocks, tiles, and marbles that people were discarding. When they found out about our project, they gave us the materials and they didn't end up in the landfill. Score!
We also used keepsakes such as some broken pieces of my grandma's china that my sister brought. Those pieces are extra special. We did hand print stones and paw print stones too.





*Note, anything you put in your stones needs to be pressed in well because the concrete does shrink slightly and if you don't have the pressed far enough in, they will fall out when your creation is dry.





This is a great activity for parties and get togethers. We made stepping stones at a Mom's night out, our family Easter party, and had guests over in the evenings as well as used them for art projects at my in-home preschool. It's so much fun to create together.









Next, you place your stones on a flat surface to dry. After about 24 hours, you can pop them out of the molds. Then they need to cure for about two weeks before they are used or any weight or pressure is put on them. Then you can enjoy them for years and years to come!










Check out the blog to see how we made 507 homemade stones to create this patio. Find the link at the top of this page.


This patio is one of our fondest gathering places.
Resources for this project:
See all materials
Any price and availability information displayed on [relevant Amazon Site(s), as applicable] at the time of purchase will apply to the purchase of this product.
Hometalk may collect a small share of sales from the links on this page.More info
Little Sprouts Learning
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
Go
Frequently asked questions
Have a question about this project?
3 of 20 questions
  • Sandy Sandy on Mar 07, 2019

    What would you use to color your stones!??! Could throw away foil pans be used ????

  • Judithcausey Judithcausey on Apr 13, 2019

    Do you buy 26 molds and do all at once, or one at a time? If you do one, does the rest of the concrete harden?

    How heavy is one paver?

    How much is 26 molds?

    I love the look.

  • Virginia Virginia on Apr 26, 2019

    How do they hold up after a winter?

Comments
Join the conversation
3 of 96 comments
  • Maymay Maymay on May 12, 2019

    Great idea. I will be trying this for my back yard project soon

  • Julie Julie on Oct 13, 2020

    Yes I'm going to try this. Thank you. I was thinking of trying those plant trays , do you think they are strong enough to hold the cement in place?

    • Little Sprouts Learning Little Sprouts Learning on Oct 13, 2020

      I imagine they would be fine. The molds you buy for it are not super sturdy. It doesn't take much to make a form. Good luck on your project.

Next