Mushroom Project

Here's how we made our mushrooms!

We started with a stepping stone kit from Michael's Crafts- it has the cement and colored glass (we wanted the flat marbles - I picked a couple of bags up from Walmart in their silk floral department). You will need a rounded bowl (I used a couple of my Pfalzgraf bowls, but they did get ruined. I should have found a rounded paper/plastic bowl.) and paper cups that are about the size of what you want your stem to be.
I lined the bowl with tin foil (when we do this again, I will use a disposable bowl or wax paper because the tin foil stuck to the cement and I had to scrub it off). I then used a little dab from a glue stick to hold all the marbles in place (round side down, flat side up). Cut the bottom off your paper cup.

Fill the bowl with cement making sure to jiggle it to fill around the marbles. Smooth the top of the cement and stick the bottomless cup into the cement. The deeper you put the cup into the cement, the shorter your stem will be. Fill the cup with cement and smooth the top (important so the mushroom will stand flat).

Let dry for a day or so. Tear the paper cup off the stem and remove mushroom from the bowl. We were able to make 2 mushrooms and a baby mushroom from 1 stepping stone kit. Eventually, I'll fill my green marble bowl above. When I did the mini mushroom, I used a smaller bowl and after I cut the bottom off the cup, I made a cut from the top to the bottom and rolled it up until it was the size of the stem I wanted.

The kids had a great time - we'll be making more!