Mix Portland cement and water in a large container.



Flat and deep is better than a bucket, and it's easiest if you have a hoe to mix it with.


Cheap plastic plant pot watering trays make wonderful stepping stone molds.


Consistency can be a bit tricky - too thick and you'll curse your mixing labor, too thin and it will collapse back on itself and won't hold an imprint.


Pizza boxes make nice molds too, although some of the stepping stones we made in these broke (a bit thin, I guess).


Once they're lined with plastic.


Everyone can get in on the action, even toddlers!


Just make sure you have a bucket for foot-washing.

Homemade stepping stones are also great repositories of children's treasures, i.e. junk - shells, old keys, foreign change, and other trinkets that can stand being stepped on.


Our favorite finished piece collects handprints of our family and friends. We'd like to make and collect these over multiple years as visitors come and go, to remember our friends and document the younger ones' growth at the same time. We'll watch Z's hand and footprints grow in stepping stone form, and soon have enough for a walkway of adjacent stones that chronicles her growth.

We find our garden to be a wonderful place to celebrate life in general, so having mementos of absent friends, and of our own growth and change, there feels fitting.

Find out what we're growing around the stone and path above, and how we grew and foraged a delicious, natural dinner on Gardenaut.