Headstones are usually found in cemeteries, and they are usually made during a funeral service. But nowadays, other events such as Halloween that let you create your own headstone for decoration. Building your own headstone is not as complicated as it seems, especially if you are going to do it for decoration. What you will need are Styrofoam slabs, around 5 of them and they must be 2 cm thick, hot wire cutter, wood burning tool, liquid nails, latex paint, drywall compound, acrylic paint, and paintbrush.

The first thing that you will need to figure out is the design. You can create as many headstones as you want. You can create headstones and crosses. The headstones can bear the names, and the crosses can have quotes on it. You will need to make sure that the stones are stable and that they will not fall over. They need to have a wide base, and a few extra pieces of Styrofoam glued to the back to keep them up.

You would then need to create basic shapes. Each stone is made from a 100x50x3 cm slab of Styrofoam, and a 2cm thick slab for additional features. You can draw the basic shape on them with a marker, and then cut them out using a hotwire cutter. You can use a hot wire cutter that works on both batteries and an external power supply. If you happen to have an adjustable power supply, and that is the perfect solution for this tool. It gives you a bit of control over the temperature. The Styrofoam pieces are glued together with liquid nails. You need to make sure that you use something that does not corrode polystyrene. This is a great method for creating all sorts of shapes. Using heat, Styrofoam is very easy to cut.

The next thing to do is the epitaph. You can write the names on the headstones by drawing them, along with the dates of birth and death, on the stones with a marker and then engrave them using a wood burning tool. This part is a bit tricky because the tool gets very hot, and it can easily ruin your entire work. You can solve it by turning it off and on every minute or so to keep the temperature in range. You can also use the method to create effects on the headstones. As for the cross, instead of a name, you can put a quote on it.

After doing the epitaph, you can start coating your work. The Styrofoam should be coated with a compound that is known as Monster Mud. This is made by mixing drywall compound and latex paint in a 5:1 ratio. This means liquid drywall compound. If you purchased the powdered ones, you have to mix it with water first. The pre-mixed compound has the advantage of keeping it longer, but it is much more expensive. If you use powdered compound, do not make too much at once because it starts to harden quite fast, and it becomes lumpy and hard to work with.

The next step is to paint your headstones. The basic painting is easy. First, the engraved text should be painted, it is best if it is painted black, as that is the color of a typical engraved text in the real headstones. You can dilute the black paint a bit so it would be easier to get into the letters. Next, the entire surface is painted gray. When the paint is dry, you can apply some spots of gray with a bit of purple mixed in, to make the base colorless monotone.

The final step is weathering. The headstone should look clean after painting it, and weathering is needed for a technique called “dry brushing”. Do not use a new paintbrush for this, because it will ruin your headstones. What you must do is to take a bit of diluted paint on your brush, and then wipe most of it off again on a piece of paper. You can then use the almost dry brush to apply streaks or dots on your headstones. It leaves a bit of paint on the object, but it makes a massive difference. You can start by applying some white around the text, so it stands out better. Then, apply some black ones on the entire surface. It will make it look more like a stone. You can also mix some green and brown paint and drybrush it in the corners to simulate dirt and moss.