Like most everyone else, we have one of those big, ugly trash cans that goes on the side of the house. And in the course of the past 9+ years, the patch of grass under where it is placed has died, leaving behind a plot of dirt. It kills me to see this big, ugly spot, so I decided it was time to cover it up. Since the dirt is pretty packed from having the trash can on top of it for so long, I decided that it wouldn’t do to replant the grass; it would just die again.
So I decided to make a stepping stone to place on top of the dirt. I liked the idea of making the stone because it would provide another opportunity to involve my youngest son, Zachary. I really enjoy working on projects with him!
We went to the home improvement store and bought the biggest cement stone we could find. The one we chose was 18”x18”. Because we would be using glass tiles on the stone to make the mosaic, we also went to the flooring aisle to pick up some grout. We bought the 1 lb tub of sanded grout guessing that this would be plenty of grout for our little project.
Our next stop was the craft store so we could purchase the glass tiles, as well as the glue (E6000) we would be using. We decided on the bags of green and blue mixed glass gems in squares, large round stones, as well as small round stones. Since we didn’t really know how many of each it would take, we bought 5 bags of the square and large round stones, and 3 bags of the smaller stones (Way, way, too many! It only took 3 bags of square and large round stones, and 1 of the smaller stones, so we returned the rest.) Here is Zachary with all of our supplies ready to get to work!
Once we got home, it was time to get started. The first stepwas to decide on a design. Zachary wanted to put a big “Z” in the middle of the stone, and decorate around it, but I convinced him that we needed a different design, but he could place a small “Z” in one of the corners if he still needed to. We decided to frame the stone with the smaller square tiles, then a circle with the large round stones, then fill in with the small round stones. What we found as we filled in the stone was that the design came to us fairly easily, and we enjoyed working on the design. We had a lot of fun:
After we placed all the stones and were happy with the design, we glued all the stones down. To do this, we lifted each stone, put some glue on the bottom, and put them back where we had lifted them, so that the design was kept intact. Here it is-all glued!
Then we waited. The glue had to set overnight before we could grout, but the stone was G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S! And it really only took about an hour and a half to design and glue.
The next day, the grouting began. I pulled out the sanded grout, and after adding water and mixing, we got a 1 lb tub of grout that was maybe half full. Yep, it became fairly obvious that we did not have nearly enough grout. After applying what we had to the stone, it didn’t even cover ½ of the stone:
Off to the home improvement store I went for more grout (another 2 lbs, making it a total of 3 lbs of grout).
After the final 2 lbs of grout were mixed, the entire stone was grouted:
The grout directions said to wait 20 minutes, then wipe the stones with a cheesecloth. I didn’t have a cheesecloth, so I used a plain dish towel. But I quickly found that I needed to wait a lot longer than 20 minutes. It was actually more like 3 hours before I felt safe wiping off the stones without messing up the grout. I wiped them more than one time throughout the day to get most of the grout off the stones. The stone was finished! But it had to sit for another 24 hours before it could be placed in its final resting spot.
Finally, the next day, after the grass was cut, my fabulous husband placed the stone in the dirt plot, and hosed it down. It is sooo beautiful!
It does seem like a shame to use it to place the trash can on but that’s what it was made for.
I will confess something, though, I may make a few more to place in other places around the yard. I just loved making this beautiful stepping stone! I hope you love it, too!
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