AUTUMN Turtle Stepping Stone Mold - Concrete Cement Mold for DIY Walkway Stepping Stones - Turtle Statue for Garden Decor

They are very cute when they come out of the mold and, even though we have only made two, my children are in love with them. We even put glow-in-the-dark stones in the mold on the second turtle. Turned out well but we didn't mix the concrete as well that time. The turtles are easy to take out of the mold and only leave concrete residue in the mold when the concrete isn't mixed well. It is slow going though since we only have one mold, and they are a bit pricey. The kids love to draw on the turtles with chalk and they are fun to decorate. Might try making colored concrete at some point for future turtles. Overall, very pleased with this mold. Will update if the mold cracks/breaks.

This mold has great detail of turtle and is very durable. Am anxious to start my new garden pathway. Only problem is that I have never done this before, and there are no directions. Such as, (1) do I need to spray it with something like Pam oil, to make the cement stone, come out of the mold easier? (2) How long do I leave the cement in the mold, before I dump it out or let it stay in the mold until it dries? I was wanting to be able to let my family write there names on each stone, in my garden. (3) Is there a limit on how many times the mold can be used? I really need to know these answers, before I can even get startedl. Haven't been able to use yet, so can't answer the rest of your survey such as value for money, sturdiness, and easy to use. Thanks.

The mold is very good. I would just recommend using High strength concrete or wire mesh to keep the arms from breaking off. Also spray something inside of the mold before using, to keep concrete from sticking to the mold

The mold is very durable, I have made a dozen or more turtles already, with varying results but I have it down now. I use Sakrete Crack Resistant 50-lb Concrete Mix. After trying mortar mix and regular concrete mix I have settled on the Crack resistant for the most durable Turtles. I had some cracking issues early on and found that even with the crack resistant concrete it helps to reinforce the head and legs with hardware cloth strips. Take your time, follow the manufacture video, BUT I found that without "Tamping" I had air pockets on the finished Turtle. I fill the mold about half full, shuffle it back and forth to work the concrete into the mold then I tamp it for a good five minutes to work out the bubbles. I tamp it by picking up the half filled mold about 4 inches and dropping it, repeating a dozen or so times. Then I place 1/4" hardware cloth strips about 1" wide 3" long into the leg and head portions of the mold on top of the half full layer and then finish filling the mold shuffling and tamping again to get the concrete spread evenly in the mold. I Have found that 24 hours is not long enough to cure the cement, 36 to 48 is better. Also avoid extreme temperature swings, I make mine in the cool of the evening so in the initial stages of curing its not too hot. Concrete dyes work well if you follow the instructions. The turtles also take paint well, I have spray painted several and they look great. Finally, I have found that vegetable oil is a good, some what environmentally safe, mold release instead of motor oil.

I wanted some whimsical and different pavers to mix in with the plain concrete stepping stones in my backyard, but it was cost prohibitive to buy more than a couple at the garden stores. I had some leftover concrete from an old project, so I decided to try this mold. It worked out really well. But be aware that even if you're using quick-set cement, you do need to wait 24 hours to take it out of the mold or it may crack/chip. So if you're making a lot of them, you will only be able to make one per day unless you buy multiple molds. But on the plus side, it's really quick and easy to do when you're only mixing a small enough concrete for one. You can just a 5-gallon bucket and mix it by hand with a small garden trowel. My leftover cement was a type called sand/topping mix. It worked really well in the mold, and I got a nice, smooth turtle with no bubbles. But that kind of cement isn't really meant for structural things, so I don't know if those stones will hold up well to being walked on. Then I went out and bought quick-set cement that has a very high strength. It mixed up with a very different consistency, and my first turtle had a lot of surface holes, even though I vibrated the mold. (It's not what I was going for, but it's actually pretty cool if you want them to look old and worn.) I mixed up the next batches a little wetter and vibrated the mold a lot more vigorously, and the remaining turtles turned out better, although they still had a few holes. I found that I could get 4 1/2 turtles out of a 60 lb bag of the topper mix, and about 3 1/2 out of a 50 lb bag of quick-set. If I make more, I'll probably just buy the regular concrete, as it's cheaper, and there's no real advantage to the quick set. (Still, even with the quick-set, these are cheap to make.) Someone mentioned that these will probably break without any kind of rebar or wire support structure in them. I don't know if that's true, as the plain concrete pavers you buy at the garden center don't have any wire in them. I could see the head and legs being a bit fragile, so you'll definitely want to be careful to put a good layer of sand or paver base under them so they don't wobble. And they might not be the best choice for a super high-traffic walkway. (I'm going to put mine around the edges of the walkway, so they don't get walked on as much.) As for finishing them off... I originally had the idea to coat them with glow-in-the-dark paint. But that doesn't really work for outdoors, because the light charge wears off before it gets dark enough to see the glow. Then I got cooped up indoors during the heat wave, and I went a little crazy getting creative with the paint. The result took forever, and now I'm not sure I want to let people walk on them after so much work. But I'm attaching a picture of a plain one, and photos of some ones I've painted, just to give you an idea of what you can do with them. I'm thinking you might be able to get a really cool effect in a lot less time with some metallic spray paint, but I haven't tried that. If you just want to use these as indoor decorations and not stepping stones, you could also make these with plaster. You could probably even do one of those cool projects where you embed things in epoxy resin (although the resin would be a lot pricier and trickier to mix).

The mold is made of formed plastic. It's thick enough to support the concrete and create a nicely formed stone but it's still flexible which makes removing the stone from the mold easy. It doesn't take much effort, other than lifting the concrete bags, to make a nice stone using this. Be careful with the mix. It needs to be a little bit soupy to fill in small areas but not too much or the concrete will be weak and break. Don't forget to shake/vibrate the mold to get the air bubbles out as soon as you pour the concrete mix in.