Halloween Tombstone Lawn Decoration

Step 2 Making sure your materials won't defect during the project

It's important to make sure at the beginning that your pizza boxes won't crumble under the weight of the project later on. Take a minute to examine your boxes. They need to be able to bear the weight of both paper mache and a few batches of play dough.

An indicator of the pizza boxes' resistance is when you first get the box. If your pizza came with a little plastic thing in the middle of it to hold the box off of it, you might want to seriously consider reinforcing it with craft foam on the inside and paper mache the lid so it's stronger. (Make sure you only reinforce the box(es) that will stay intact during the process)

Trust me, you don't want to see your hard work cave in on itself on the final steps and have to start all over again.

Second, you'll want to make sure the box won't wobble while you work with it. Take your duct tape or other tape and tape the box securely shut. I used just 6 pieces per box, and that was plenty to keep it in place.

With these precautionary steps, your project has a good chance of holding itself up during the construction process and maybe for next Halloween.

Also: This is the best place to think about how you want your stone to look in your yard. Do you want it to appear free-standing or are you okay with just leaning it up against a tree or a garden post? If you want your stake hidden inside the stone, cut a hole in the bottom of the box to the size of the stake. If not, then keep going with the project.