Romancing The Stone Creating Your Own Stepping Stones A Bit Like ‘Baking A Cake’

A garden path used to be a brick road to a beautiful garden setting, a gateway.

These days, a garden path is a unique destination, an extension of home furnishing, a display of creativity, and a path to beauty in and of itself. A large line of pre-crafted art stones are now available, but more and more people are taking on the project themselves, finding a new outlet for their creativity and personalizing their gardens from the ground up.

A mold, concrete and a little imagination are the most necessary elements of stepping stone creation. Add a good dose of Vaseline, WD-40, cooking spray, or other lubricant to pop the stone out of the form easily and, depending on your needs and your concrete, a little time to cure and heal the stone also enter into the recipe.

“It’s like baking a cake,” says Maria Fromdahl of Coeur d’Alene. Fromdahl creates stones using designs cut from stained glass, arranged upside-down on clear contact paper in the bottom of the concrete mold, then cemented. Some designs she takes from stained glass pattern books, others she designs herself. All make magnificent garden art.

But even for those a little shy about their stained glass talents, a stone almost too beautiful to step on can add personal charm to a garden. Start with a concrete mold, which costs from $9.95 upward and can be reused many times, an inexpensive bag of cement (starting from about $2 per bag for Quikcrete), and perhaps some patio paints to compliment existing flora on the garden palette.

Molds for concrete are made of heavy plastic and come in about as many shapes as can be imagined for stepping stones, including pre-designed patterns that need no additional decoration. Another option is the do-it-yourself mold, says Eugene Hogue, owner of Hogue’s Concrete Garden in North Spokane. Four 2 x 2’s clamped together make a fine square mold, says Hogue.

“People can use things like cake tins, too,” says Hogue, whose outdoor display area sports a few stones made in an oversized cake tin.

Cement mixes abound. Fromdahl uses a variety of mixes depending on her project, leaning to an industrial strength grout for her most recent stones.

“It doesn’t shrink, it’s really strong and will not crack,” says Fromdahl.

But, she adds, you need a tool to mix the concoction. Hogue favors Portland Cement, which he mixes at a proportion of 1 part cement, 2 parts sand, and 3 parts gravel. A 1-2-2 ratio is fine for thinner pieces, he says.

Carol Gardner, owner of Glass Expressions in Coeur d’Alene, recommends Diamondcrete or Quikcrete as a medium.

Diamondcrete comes in a variety of colors, while Quikcrete is very economical and only needs to set for about one hour, says Gardner.

For people who like baking, mixing cement is a no-bake dream. Hogue says the consistency should be like “gravy,” while the recipe for stones found on the Web site (www.historystones.com) of Flex Teck, a mold manufacturer in Camas, Wash., calls for a mix like “pancake batter.”

Once the batter is poured for the stone soup, shake and tap the mold to remove bubbles. Hogue recommends tapping it on a table about 100 times. After the mold is poured and has set for the recommended time for the mix, the stone must be unmolded gently on a flat, but not hard surface. Hogue suggests turning it out on a wood or plastic surface and smoothing any rough edges.

Leaf patterns can be added to the stones by pressing a mature leaf vein-side down in a partially set stone, says Hogue. Of course, children’s handprints or pets’ pawprints are always a good standby if design elements fail a stone maker. And colored cement mixes can blend stones with a garden scheme, or make them stand out.

Round colored glass stones around the edge or bits of tile or colored glass in a mosaic pattern are among the many decorative touches that can make a path a place to be.

While the stone is still soft-set is the right time to make any desired impressions, whether human, animal or vegetable, or to press other materials into the surface. Hogue’s designs include a hummingbird mold with white aggregate or pebbles pressed into the recessed areas after molding.

Painting and sealing are options that add a new twist to stepping stones. Patio paints and sealers are recommended by both Hogue and Gardner. These should be applied after the stone has thoroughly dried, which again depends on the cement used. The sealer is typically applied first, then the paint.

After an optional topcoat of sealer for a shiny finish, a garden stone becomes a quasi-culinary masterpiece, and almost as fun to make as mud pie.