Patio Paver Crafts

It has been awhile since I last posted, and this is the first time attempting to do so on my tablet.
Last month I did a couple of painting crafts both on my own and with my grandson.
The first are some ladybug pavers that will be crawling around one of the trees in our yard.

I got the inspiration here.

Here are hers.

And here are mine.

I had one patio paver left, so my grandson and I worked on this one together. At first he wanted a cow, but when I showed him a picture of a tractor, he decided on that.
I drew the shapes we needed and outlined it, and he filled in the colors. He placed his in his mother's (my daughter) garden next door.

He did a great job!

Just this last week, I did a couple more painted paver crafts.
The inspirations came from here and here.

Their versions...

And Mine.

So, here's the method I used for these painted pavers:

First the individual ones.

1) Clean the pavers and brush off most of the dust.

2) Paint a base coat of your main color with acrylic craft paint. (actually, I painted the caterpillar with spray paint, Rustoleum 2X, but I think the acrylic paint may end up a little cheaper to use and easier to fill in the crevices.) You will probably need 2-3 coats to cover well, depending on the color you use.

3) After the base coat has dried, paint on the faces, markings, etc. with the other colors. Again drying between any coats needed.

4) Allow to dry thoroughly. I usually let them dry at least overnight, but the tractor I did the same day and it went ok. Don't worry if it looks dull, the sealer will give it a good gloss.

5) Apply a coat of Concrete Sealer. I used this, which I got at Menards.  Let dry and repeat at least one more coat. This is the same sealer I used on my stamped patio several years ago and it has held up well. Even though the gloss is now gone, the acrylic paint has been protected and is still there. I still have about 1/3 of this left, as it is thin like water and a little goes a long way.

6) For the caterpillar, or any shape you come up with that needs to be glued together, the process is the same except that FIRST you will glue the pavers together with landscape adhesive. Again, I got this at Menards. I had asked one other blogger what she used to glue hers together and she said she used E6000 glue. She said it worked well, but after a couple of years they fell apart and had to be re-glued. We'll see it if this lasts any longer.

It did not say on the tube if it was paint-able or not, but I contacted the company and they said it is. They suggested waiting 24 hrs. before painting and using acrylic paint, so it moves with the product. My Bad, I sprayed it before finding this out (Too impatient to get my project started!) I did wait 48 hrs., though, so I was good there. Once the adhesive has dried well, sand or grind off any "ooze outs" and again brush off the dust before painting. It's probably best not to use too much, because any "ooze outs" on the bottom side are going to be flattened and smooth, as opposed to the crevices in the paver.

Here are pics of my creations in their ?final? (who knows) resting places.

Guarding my grill flower cart

Crawling through the weeds

After a couple of rains

Around the box elder tree

P.S. I may have started this on my tablet, but finished it on the desktop. Things just did not move around the way I liked on the tablet, but the pics uploaded easier, so I guess a combo of the two worked pretty slick.

Enjoy!