Make Your Own Styrofoam Halloween Tombstone

Halloween Tombstone

Made from Shipping Styrofoam

Tombstone that looks like real stone.

What you will need for this project:

Square Styrofoam pieces
Red spray paint
Black poster paint
Paint brushes or dollar store cotton swabs to paint with
Thin cardboard
Glue
Scissors

Optional - Dollar store skeleton head
Directions to make the netting are lower on this page

I used some Styrofoam that came in a box as packaging for an appliance. It had a big circle in the middle so I glued a square scrap of Styrofoam on to the front. 

I think the ornate edges make it look more like a tombstone.

I let the glue dry.

Spray paint the Styrofoam with red spray paint.

I added water to my black poster paint container to make it watery and lighter when painting with it.

I painted several layer of the watery black poster paint. With the white Styrofoam, red spray paint, and the black paint you get a lot of contrast. The watery black paint also eats away at the Styrofoam a bit making it look aged and ragged.

I used the cardboard divider from a 12 pack of Heineken glass bottles to make my RIP letters. I cut out the winged pieces as they were all the same size and already sort of letter shaped.

I shaped the letters and painted them gray. Then I aged the letters by painting them with a bits of watered down taupe paint and watered down black paint.

Then I just glued them to my Styrofoam block.

I took another piece of scrap Styrofoam for the base and painted it the same way I did for the tombstone. 

Then I glued it to the tombstone.

Now you've got a spooky aged Halloween tombstone. It's really light weight as you can imagine but it looks like a really heavy aged piece of stone.

Now I just put on my dollar store skeleton head and my homemade netting.


To make the netting you will need:

Empty potato sack
Scissors
Nail polish remover
Taupe paint - or any other color you prefer
Rubber glove

To make the spider web use an empty potato bag. Most of them are made of a plastic type netting.

Cut the bag open along the seams and remove the label and label glue with nail polish remover. This is usually a tedious task.

Painted netting is shown on the left. Unpainted bag is shown on the right.

Scrunch the netting into a ball and with you hands gloved dip it into the taupe paint or other neutral color paint. Spread the paint all over the plastic netting with your fingers. Keep dipping and spreading the paint until it is covered. Don't worry about any holes or cuts in the netting as it is suppose to be a spooky Halloween web. You can highlight the netting with either a darker color like black or lighter color like white for some contrast.

And that's it! Just drape your netting over one side and place your skeleton head on top. Spooky!