Making Concrete Stepping Stones… with Plant-Fossil Design

Fast-setting concrete, simple form, no-fuss process

> Youtube video to follow. This article is roughly the text ‘script,’ since it takes about 10 times as long to make the video. The unedited raw videos are linked in place. <

I wanted a dozen or so cheap, agregate (?) concrete stepping stones for my patio, which I covered in pebbles… to make it easier when walking on it barefoot. But it turns out they don’t sell large ones — 18"-24" — anymore, near me at least. I did find some beautiful cast concrete ones for about $30 each, but that ain’t gonna happen.

Here’s what one looks like… the cheap kind I was expecting to find:

And here’s one of my end products with a leaf pattern in it. Can you guess what plant this one is???

Clue: don’t touch it! And another, hostas:

Unedited, un-narrated, raw videos:

1. Mold https://youtu.be/s3m2ObQWxTg
2. Gluing a plant ‘fossil’ in place https://youtu.be/bTXa2o2ME4Y
3. Pouring fast-setting concrete https://youtu.be/xRHjfzgFalo
4. Releasing the casting https://youtu.be/ka7viwRkyY0 This was an early attempt. IF YOU GLUE THE PLANT DOWN WELL, YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO ANY SCRAPING, just pull off stems and lose plant matter. Weather and walking will do the rest.