How To Make Cement Letters

It is fun to experiment with new crafts, but it is more fun to see how they turn out.  Some times you may experience an epic fail, but that should never halt your progress, as you should try and try again until you get it right.  I recently purchased from Amazon,alphabet ice cube trays, which I did in fact try making ice cubes and they worked like a charm.  I got the biggest kick out of dropping cute ice letters into my drink, and even shared a few letters in the dogs water bowl too, but I knew what my ultimate craft adventure was going to be for these little molds. Cement letters, of course!

I never worked with any type of silicone molds before, so I was curious as to how easy it would be to remove your item once formed from the mold. Removing the ice from the molds was super easy. I just stretched the sides of the silicone mold a tad, and the letters just dropped out. Now, I am going to purchase another set of these molds just for ice and/or chocolate, and I am going to use the first set for making my cement letters. I read that you can even use these silicone molds to bake right in the oven too (up to a certain temperature) and the molds don’t melt!

Anyhow, with the excitement flowing on how cool the ice letters turned out, I grabbed my silicone molds and headed down to my workshop to whip up a small batch of Quikrete Cement to make some cement letters. I scooped a small amount of Quikrete Cement into an empty plastic container and poured a little water in. Your cement mixture should be like a thick pancake mixture consistency. With Quikrete, you need to work quickly as it hardens within minutes. Once the cement was well mixed, I sprayed the molds with some Pam cooking spray, as this is called a release agent so the cement does not stick to the sides. I poured the cement slowly to reduce any air bubbles. Now, we wait.  Quikrete Cement dries pretty quickly, but I left these to sit overnight, just to make sure.

The cement letters popped right out of the mold perfectly! I just stretched the sides of the mold just like I did with the ice, and the letters dropped right out of the mold! I let the letters air dry a bit more, and if there were any rough spots, I just lightly sanded them with a small piece of sand paper.  The last thing I did was dip them in a cement sealer to protect them. The size of the letters are different per letter, but they are approximately 1 5/8″ in height, 1 1/2″ in width, and 1/2″ thick.

I can honestly say that working with silicone molds is really easy. I will definitely be purchasing another set so I can make some chocolate letters!

Here’e the rundown on what you will need to create your own cement letters:

• Silicone Alphabet molds
• Quikrete Cement
• Water
• A small plastic container to mix the cement & a wooden spoon
• Pam Cooking Spray to be used a the release agent
• Cement Sealer (optional)

At this time, I have almost made the entire alphabet, and looking at the cement letters I have made so far, it makes me think of the game Scrabble. How fun would that be to make enough letters to play Scrabble? Or perhaps make the word “grow” and set the letters in a flower pot?

Here’s some other ideas I came up with to use these little cement letters for:

• Attach a magnet with glue to the back of the letters to your fridge
• Hang the cement letters on your Christmas tree with a beautiful ribbon
• Spell out names in front of your dinner plates as place cards
• Attach them to your wood tombstones, which is what I am going to do with the “RIP”
• Spell out your name for your mailbox post

The possibilities are endless!