Nice Touch For The Yard: Stepping Stones & Paths

These are a nice touch in the backyard and can be intended as a decorative element in the space or used for more practical purposes (such as arranging around bulbs & seedlings so feet don’t tread on them, etc.). There are a few different ways you can make them using a variety of materials, here are a bunch of diy ideas that provide lots of inspiration and step-by-step directions. At the bottom you’ll find several different resources and ideas for making garden pathways. Enjoy!

Wooden: Made with scrap wood or 1×4’s cut into 12 inch lengths. Assembled with nails and glue, paint if desired (glue is optional).

Embossed: Made with a mix of masonry sand, Portland cement & water, poured into a plastic dishpan or container (mold).

Leaf Shaped: Similar idea to making concrete leaves, you’ll want to make the surface as flat as possible so they’re suitable for stepping on and evenly thick so they last (made with a paste of cement & water).

Mosaic: You’ll find both a written and a video tutorial available for this project. There’s another tutorial here.

Sculpted: For this project you’ll need oil-base modeling clay, plywood, mold latex, nonstick cooking spray, pine boards, wood screws, masonite board, concrete mix, latex paint and brick fragment for sanding edges.

NES: I’m not a big gamer but these stones turn out with a neat pattern (uses top half of the case from an old nintendo game system for the mold).

Concrete: Simple project that uses a plastic 5 gallon bucket for the mold.

Personalized: For this project you will need a form for the stepping stone, cement, mortar, sand, water, styrofoam or EPS foam (used to make the letters for personalizing) and a hotwire machine.

Fence Post: Made with 1/2″ thick slices of pressure-treated posts glued to a square of hardware netting or hardware cloth (using construction adhesive).

Cement With Handprints: Offers ideas for getting crafty with the kiddos, make cement garden stones with their handprints and embellish with decorative stones. Great gift idea for grandparents.

Pebble Mosaic: Made with pebbles that are about 2 to 3 cm in diameter, slate chippings, ready-mixed cement and steel mesh. The first layer of cement is poured in mold, topped with a piece of mesh, another layer of cement and then pebbles are pressed into the top to form a pattern.

Easy Project: Plastic trays/flats are used for the mold, leaves are arranged on top of tray before pouring cement so there’s a leaf design imprinted on block once it hardens.

Cardboard Tube Molds: A cardboard tube is sliced into rings, filled with cement then imprinted with pieces of a decorative rubber mat.

Tips & Ideas

• myhomeideas.com: Features several different ideas using a variety of materials.
• Affordable Ideas: Featuring mulch and gravel, stepping-stones, borders and edging.
• dannylipford.com: Tutorial for showing how to layout and plan a path using stepping stones.
• Flagstone: Instructions for laying out and installing a flagstone path. They also have another bunch of ideas here: sunset.com.
• Recycle Concrete: Project for reusing old concrete from a driveway or or patio.