Stepping stone crafty time

Our anniversary was a couple weeks ago and Loren and I have a tradition that we always make gifts for each other. I think it stemmed from the fact that our birthdays are exactly three weeks after our anniversary so it was getting a little gift crazy around here. Anyway - after being together for so long it's getting a little tricky to think of something cool to make him.

I try to loosely follow the anniversary year theme...you know, cotton, wood, etc. Well for four years the item was flowers/fruit. Difficult. Especially since I wanted to make something that he could keep not a pie or something. I got an idea to make a personalized stepping stone for our back yard. We've been working hard this summer on keeping out back yard looking good and there's flowers and a fruit plant out there so it seemed like a good idea. And Loren's Mom had mentioned a project she was working on for her yard and she was using some of the decorative vase filler stones from our wedding so I got some inspiration from that as well. I had my Mom ship me out some wedding stones and then got to planning.

I decided the best way to tackle this was to use a kit. I went to Michael's and they have TONS of different kits and various supplies to choose from. I ended up getting a kit that had all the supplies I would need plus some stamping tools. I settled on a layout and got busy.




First thing I had to do was mix up the cement. It was really easy but the mixture was very dusty and went up my nose a little! After you mix it up good, then you just pour the mixture into the mold and try to smooth it out as much as you can. Once it's smooth you can start adding stones or other glass pieces. You push them into the cement until they're even...you don't want the stones to stick out of the cement at all.



Then things got a little tricky. I wanted to stamp some lettering into the stone and the directions said to wait about 30 minutes. I did but once I came back to check on the stone again the cement was still too liquidy (is that a word?) and the letters were getting filled back in. I ended up doing the stamping part about three times, I think. I finally got it to where it seemed like it was going to stay and decided to let it dry.



The final product turned out pretty good. It's a little amateur looking but Loren liked it and that's all that matters. Plus I like that it has actual items from our wedding to make it extra special and we'll be able to take it to any house we live in.



What do you think? Successful crafting attempt? Have you ever tried anything similar?