Creative Ideas With Quickrete

Walk of Family

• Hollywood has its Walk of Fame, but you can have a Walk of Family sidewalk instead. Use Quikrete quick-setting cement to create a short sidewalk at your home and decorate it with the handprint of each child, as well as you and your partner. If grandparents live with you, put their handprints in the mix, too. Don't forget to add a name and other significant identifier for each person, such as his nickname or birth date. Build a sidewalk form using 2-by-4s nailed together along the sides and the bottom to provide a house for the cement mixture to form and dry.

Family Crest

• Create a family crest emblem using Quikrete cement. It can be a family project completed over the Labor Day or Thanksgiving holidays, just in time to hang on your outdoor wall before Christmas. Cut out pictures of other family crests to get ideas for how you want yours to look. Any hard metal or tin container in the shape you desire your crest to be can be used to hold the cement form as it dries. Make crest impressions and carve your family name in the mix before it can harden completely. Paint after it dries.

Garden Sign

• Your junior gardening helper in the home should get some recognition for her service all year. Pour Quikrete cement into an old tin cake pan and let it harden after you have her imprint her name, handprint and a title such as "Junior Gardener." Encourage her to paint the sign after it dries and you have drilled holes for hanging. Put it at your garden entrance so she gets the recognition she deserves when guests take a garden stroll.

Flowerpots

• Don't purchase flowerpots when you can make and decorate your own with quick-setting cement. You need at least one pot larger than another to use as your pot form, but other than that, all you have to purchase is the cement mix -- which is selling for as little as approximately $5 for an 80-pound bag of Quikrete, as of the time of publication. Pour enough cement to cover the bottom of the largest pot after mixing. Set the other pot on top of it, but don't press. Pour cement between the two pots and allow to dry. Remove the small pot and the new cement pot form and paint or decorate it.