Kid Friendly Stepping Stones

So have I have found my new love on the internet... pinterest. Have you heard of it? It is AMAZING! A place to organize all my recipes I find online, crafts and DIY's inspiration, home wants and decor likes... the list goes on!

Anyway, So I have found so many KID FRIENDLY crafts. My little pumpkin, Adalie, is almost 3 and she is mommy's big helper! She loves to help make and bake and clean and craft.... So I have been looking up Kid Friendly crafts for us to do during her brother's nap time. I have found some stepping stone ideas but they use concrete... which scares me out a little with kids since it is TOXIC and CORROSIVE. ( I was not able to find Kid Friendly concrete at Home Depot... ie non corrosive) I found a kit at walmart for 11.96 or something along the lines of that. It makes 4 little stepping stones and I thought, WHAT A FUN IDEA for her birthday party next month!! I remember doing these at our church VBS when I was a leader and at summer camp when I was a kid.

This kit comes with the round butterfly design mold, so you actually make up the stones, let them set for a couple days and paint them... As far as I am concerned... We will skip that. Paint with the age range of kids that come to Adalie's parties probably will stress out all the moms at the party. Adalie and I will do this kit for us... I am putting together my own Stepping Stone kits for each of the kids that is simple, easy, and of course the most important... FUN!!

So enough jibber jabber... Lets get to it.

What you need:

• Plaster of Paris (Kid Friendly source of FUN)
• Water
• Stir Stick (I used a paint stir stick)
• Measuring Cup
• bucket for mixing (not shown in photo)
• Foil container (for mold... you can use a bucket, plastic container etc)
• Flyers or newspaper for easy clean up
• rocks, stones, tiles for decorating
• Any extra fun stuff you want to use

Now for my tin container I didn't use a foil pie plate because I didn't want the slanted sides to be that drastic, I purchased these cook-n-carry, pack of three foil containers that worked perfect! 3 for $1 works for me :)
I got most of my stones and rocks from the dollar store, in expensive, and work GREAT! In fact you could get most of your supplies from the dollar store, and I did! Now I did go to Michaels for a few things and I wanted to see what they had in the stepping stone/mosaic isle. I found some things on clearance. I also found these fun stone stamps. They were 9.99 for a pack and they had two fonts to choose from. I chose the simple block letters since this is KID FRIENDLY ;) So next set up your area. Put your flyers or newsprint down and spread out your decorating supplies.
NOW I played around and made 2 different step stones. I came to the conclusion... you need to work fast if you are doing hand prints or basically any decorating (make mixture a little watery for intricate decorative stones) I mixed 1 1/2-2 parts water to 3 parts plaster of paris.
So here I mixed 3 cups plaster of paris and 1 1/2 - 2 cups water Start with 1 1/2 cups and then slowly add more if needed (add more if you find it sets up too fast)
Mix with stir stick

You want it a yogurt consistency, possibly even runnier.

pour into foil pan
Now it is key to tap the container. pick it up and drop it (only from about 2-4" above your surface. this gets all the bubbles to the top like shown in the photo
Now for the fun part... decorate it! When it is dry (it sets so fast an hour is even good... but leave it longer if you wish.
pop out of mold or tear away sides.

Place in your garden and enjoy :)

This is a fun, fast, easy, KID FRIENDLY way of doing stepping stones. It can get a little messy and it is best you leave the stirring to the mommies and the decorating for the kidlets :)

Have fun!