Front porch, egg carton stone laid out.

When I was doing my last bricking job, and gaining new wrinkles of frustration on the grouting in the tricky inaccessible areas of a massive fireplace, my kid looked at me and said, "you ought to leave it as dry. Who'll notice tiny grout lines?"

For a minute there I wondered if she had a point... but with a couple weeks' distance from the frustration, I can say that (as always) I'm glad I made the effort. Maybe no one would have noticed what was missing, but with it there, it's noticeable. If that makes sense.

Hope you'll feel that way too because I can see from these two pix it's already gorgeous!!

You know you're a miniaturist if you think 2.5x5" is "expansive". LOL. ;)

I saw the process done by Joanne's Minis. I like what you can do with egg cartons too. She did a cement sidewalk with it. I want a porch like you have (spacious). I'm dying to do a porch swing!

My nephew has only one request, a porch swing. Well, guys, just finished ripping out the stone work. So many times I've done a practice piece to learn techniques and to see if the final product was what I had in mind, or better. Guess I got a little too sure of myself. The texture was way to rough, it just didn't fit the house. I kept thinking I could make it work, but, in the long run I'd have put more time trying to fix it than if I just started over. Scraped it out before the glue was set like cement. Really looking for a slate look and I have some ideas. I'll share my practice piece with you all, and, look forward to your opinions.