Let's start at the beginning...
In September I was surfing around Halloween sites looking for ideas for the tombstones I wanted to make this year. I stumbled up the Monster List of Halloween projects and caught site of some of the fences and columns that other people had put together. Some people go all out and if you're looking for great halloween projects you'll find something there.
Needless to say I convinced DH that these would be a perfect addition to our cemetary and work began. We started the wood frame using 2X4 and 1x2 lumber.
We were going to purchase brick panelling but it turns out that's hard to find...who knew! When we did find it it was to discover that it was $35 per panel and we would need two. Of course Perry thought we could build it for cheaper ourselves so we went the foam insulation route.
I first started carving the foam using an exactor knife and it was hard so I ran to Zellers and bought a butane powered heat gun that has a couple of different accessories, one of them a knife. The heat knife goes through the foam like butter...it melts it so fast so there is a bit of a learning curve.
It took me hours and hours...days of working on the foam brick that I think I was stoned from the fumes for at least a week. Good times! LOL Of course there's no picture of me working on the walls.
Clearly the first red was not the right one. We're going for realistic looking props so we really wanted the brick to match our house.
We found the gargoyles at Party Packagers and thought they would be ideal for the tops of our pillars with just a few touchups...ok so I re-painted the whole thing grey and then applied speckle spray paint. LOL They match the top "stone" perfectly.
By this point Perry was getting excited about how well they were turning ou
t and decided that we also needed a fence to to with our pillars so he quickly threw one together using PVC pipe and 1x2 lumber. He found some whistles at Wal-mart and with a little creative altering fit them into the top of the pipe. The larger end-post skull we found at Party packagers.
Paint it all black and voila...wrought-iron fencing.
I used my new butane tool on some foam tombstones. As long as you prime the foam you can do pretty much anything to it paintwise and so I tried a couple of new techniques and I'm pleased with the way they turned out. In all the reading I did online about carving tombstones, every website recommended a dremel tool so guess what DH is getting for Christmas. LMAO!
The pirate gravestone was made using a pumpkin carving pattern that I traced with an exacto knife and chipped the white styrofoam out. I used spray paint directly on the foam which gave it an effect that looks like stone. You don't want to spray too close to the foam because the chemical in the spray paint will melt it quickly.
And Finally...some pictures of our scary house.
In hindsight there are some pictures that I would have liked to have got but of well, ya live ya learn. ;) Next year...we're working on smaller props!!
