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I wanted to decorate for Halloween but after checking out the available decorations I decided I'd rather save my $20 per tombstone and make my own. From my terrain making I have everything I need on hand to make some fairly decent tombstones.

Materials Needed

Total construction time: about an hour

Step 1

You start out with a chunk of 2" thick pink foam insulation. I had this piece lying around my workshop but you can buy a large piece from any home improvement store. My local store is kind of hit or miss for 2" thick foam but when they have it it's about $30 for a 4' X 8' sheet.
First mark your foam to the dimensions you want. I used 12" wide by 20" tall for a start.  Draw a line 12" from one edge all along the piece of foam and a second line at 20" from one side.

Step 2

(Note: If your foam cutter can reach your lines from the edges of the foam then skip this step)
Now you have the basic shape of the tombstone marked you may notice that your hot wire foam cutter is too short to reach all the way to the lines you drew for your tombstone.  If this happens take your pocket knife and cut around the area you marked off (give yourself an inch or so outside your lines).  You only need to cut part way through.  Be careful to not get any part of your body in the way in case the knife slips.  Once you've cut the foam put the cut side away from you and your knee on the back side.  When you pull the edges of the foam towards you the foam will snap roughly along the line you cut.  This is good for getting a rough shape but you can't get a nice straight edge this way.

Step 3
Mark the top of the square you drew earlier with two points on either side that are 3.5" from the top of the tombstone.  Also make a mark along the top at the center point.  We're going to use these points to draw the arc that we're going to use to cut out the top of the tombstone.  You can do several different styles of tombstone this way.  Just draw out what you want and cut around the lines.  It's one of my pet peeves when someone edits a photo in a very obvious way and doesn't ever explain why so in the interest of being completely honest I edited the econd photo was edited in Paint.NET because I forgot to take a picture when I drew the top of the tombstone in for real.  Sometimes I get too caught up in what I'm doing and forget to take the pictures along the way.
 

   

Step 4
Use the hot wire foam cutter to cut around the lines you drew on the foam.  If it's not perfectly straight don't worry about it you can sand off the worst of the problems.  Any fine sandpaper should work fine for this step.  I'm using some hobby sandpaper I had on hand.  It's more expensive than the basic sandpaper but I can wash it out and use it over and over.

 

Before Sanding After Sanding
   


The final result is the basic shape of a tombstone.  You can paint it as it is and paint on text and a design or carve the text or a design into the foam.  See my tutorial on How to Carve Letters into foam Tombstones for specifics on carving lettering.  Below you can see shots of the basic tombstone shape and what it looks like painted and with letters carved into it.