Home Made Grave Stones

If you ever went into a Halloween store to buy some head stones, you were probably shocked to see a $20 plus price tag for each! Well, you can make three of your own for under $20.

Step 1 Materials and tools

Materials

1  4foot x 8foot sheet x 1inch of Styrofoam insulation.Home Depot and Lowe’s always has this  for about $10.
1 can of flat white spray paint. I use enamel based
1 can flat black spray paint.
glue that won’t melt Styrofoam. I use the brown Gorilla glue.
bailing wire
cheap wood for steaks


For tools you will need

A hack saw blade
a hot knife with changeable tips. Check out Michael’s near the wood crafts.
pliers
respirator
tape measure
box cutter
drill and bits
drywall screws
paint brush


If you want to take your head stones to the next level you will also need

air brush
black and white water based airbrush paint. I use Createx found at Michael’s.
hollow plastic skulls for molds. Found at dollar stores and at Spirit.
something for mold release. I use tire cleaner
Great Stuff urethane gap foam
air compressor
hot glue gun with lots of glue sticks
blow gun for your compressor

Comments

[mhussey]

Amazing!! Next year, I'm definitely doing this!

[Some Dork]

Incredible, love them!

[mrfoltz]

Excellent!!! I like your explanation to make spray foam skulls... I've been trying to figure ways of doing similar, as in sculptures/molds and what materials to use for this process....., but it can be very expensive to experiment!
What mold release did you use?
Thanks!

[tobster9103]

Thank you! For mold release I just use tire shine, in this case Zoopshine but anything that is slightly oily should work. I have never used a comercial mold release. I think that as long as you use a slick surface for your mold, the GreatStuff should not stick. As I said in the Instructable, do not use too much GreatStuff or you will end up with a melted side, you can always try to add more if you need to. The foam expands about an inch so it will fill really well but it does shrink up quite a bit when you pop it from the mold and it tends to get wrinkly and loose some detail, good for aged stone. This technique is usefull but has its limitatins. I hope this helps out and if I can help out further just give me a shout!

[HollyHarken]

I made much simpler headstones out of leftover insulation many years ago. Yours are beautiful!

[tobster9103]

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoy them!

[chinabought]

wow,this cool!

[rzafira]

Wonderful work, hard work too but well worth it! I love Halloween, thanks for the inspiration.

[tobster9103]

Glad to help get the creative juices flowing! Would love to see what you come up with!

[l8nite]

great looking stones, haunting can be addictive can't it !

[tobster9103]

Thank you! Gotta love Halloween!

[ZoDo]

You make it look so simple....

[javajunkie1976]

A person can never have too many T-stone tutorials!!