Tiffany Pitts

I made these yesterday. I’ve been messing around with these gigantic molds and finally figured out a batch I really like. Here’s how I did it:

First of all you need to get these:

Millennium Falcon

Han Solo trapped in Carbonite

Don’t friggin’ skimp. Get them both. You have to make a huge mess anyway, why not make BOTH of them at the same time?

Then go to the Home Depot (or your local hardware store) and buy these things:

Now go to the Goodwill and get a few kitchen utensils you can use to mix cement. I use a turkey fork and a gigantic rubber spatula. You’re also going to need a small (1-2 gallon) bucket and a measuring cup or bowl for water.

Here is what I used, all gathered in one place:

Start by preparing your molds. To do this, steal a paintbrush from your kids. Make sure the bristles are long.

Now, brush the entire inside of each mold with the cement colorant. Like this:

When you’re done, it should look like this:

Repeat for the Han Solo mold and set them aside in a dry area. Next, grab your bucket.

In my experience, the Millennium Falcon mold holds less volume than the Han Solo mold, so I start with the Millennium Falcon first. My recipe is (roughly):

• 3 scoops of Rapid Set concrete powder to
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 2 Tsp concrete color

This is not a foolproof recipe though so I go by texture instead of measuring. Scoop the concrete into your bucket first.

Add the colorant.

Then add your water. I recommend adding it a little at a time. And keep a cup of water near you to rest your goopy utensils in later.

And stir. Add more water or more concrete mix depending on consistency. You are looking for something between cake batter and ….thicker cake batter. Uh, pancake batter? Banana bread batter? No, that’s too thick. Brownie batter? Something like that but with no lumps.

Now, pour!

Now, if you’ve made your Millennium Falcon mold first, you probably have a little concrete leftover. So add three more scoops of cement mix, the colorant and more water and mix up another batch for the Han Solo mold. This mold will hold more volume than the Millennium Falcon so don’t worry if the second batch is larger.

After you pour each mold, tap it down to get the concrete to even out then go wash your bucket and utensils under the hose. If you don’t wash those soon, the concrete will start to set and your bucket will never be the same.

When you’re done cleaning up, tap the molds down again and let them cure over night on a level surface.  The next day the stones should be set and ready to take out of the mold.

You will notice that the Millennium Falcon now looks like it should be part of the Empire. Clearly, that is the wrong color for the Millennium Falcon. which is why you are now going to spray it down with the hose.

So now you have a soggy Millennium Falcon of the wrong color. Here is where you put on gloves. If you have big fat ones you can get wet, that would be ideal. I wear a pair of surgical gloves underneath my big fat gardening gloves because I’m persnickety that way. Whatever you do make sure they have thick palms because now you’re going to cake the whole thing with dirt.

Now, rub all that dirt into the surface of the cement. Make it muddier if you have to but make sure you get in all the little valleys because the more you work the dirt into the paint, the more texturing you will give the paint. This is where thick gloves come in handy.

Now, rinse that bad boy off and see what you got. If you’re like me, you’ll get too excited to see what it looks like and rinse it off too soon. If you need more texture, put more mud on it and texture it some more.

I have found that you don’t need to texture the Han Solo stone nearly as long as the Millennium Falcon. Now, put them in your yard and GO  BE AWESOME.