Thread: Need advise on Styrfoam stone wall

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Along with working on Halloween props, my little girl is doing her social studies project on the Ancient Mayan Calender. I want to decorate her backdrop as if it was stone ruins. Anyone can help with what material and to use and how to paint or rub grout to make it look like stone? Maybe that spray can stone stuff? Thanks!!!

I used a drill with a wire wheel brush to do my grout, looks great. Very messy!

I made these cemetery walls/fences using foam. I did the grout lines using a paint brush and Acetone. Then painted it all gray, sprayed on the faux stone stuff, and painted the grout lines black. I think they turned out OK.

I'm not a big fan of using styrofoam for walls - I LOVE the foam, but usually for other, smaller applications. I suppose weight is the biggest benefit.

Anyway, I use plywood for my walls; a good painting job will look just as awesome.

As for texture and depth. I try to steer away from stone texture (or "popcorn", stucco, etc) on large walls like that - ESPECIALLY if you're going to have anyone walking close to it or touching it (costume snag, and it's just rough).

For depth, I use the foam in certain parts to raise up an object (like I had a window sill on my wall (under a painted window) that was a piece of foam. So, are you putting anything else on the wall, or is it JUST stone (sconces, etc?).

If it's JUST a stone wall, with no additional images on it, I think a foam board would work - and like other have said, a dremmel tool or something would work for grout lines.

It'd be kinda cool to have a few stones raised out - so you've got a flat wall, then a handful of 'stones' (pieces of foam, cut, carved) sticking out just a bit - to add depth.

Here's my example of a 'wall' from a piece of plywood framed with some 1x3's. Everything is painted on -except, like I mentioned, the window sill is a 1/2" piece of foam (as is the hinges on windows/door and two blocks of wood at the top - one for a sign post and the other a lantern that eventually hang from it)



Here it is the day after halloween (the seem is a little less noticeable) - pay no attention to the unfinished gray wall That'll be done this year.

Hi Pooky73!

Here's what we did last year: we glued styrofoam to a sheet of plywood (because we needed it to be sturdy). Then we proceeded to shape the styrofoam with a dremel tool to make the stone effect:



Then, I used a water sprayer (like the ones used in gardening) and sprayed water on the styrofoam. With a small butane torch, I "burned" the styrofoam; this resulted in groves where there was no water (I don't have a picture of this process, but here's what it looked like after it was done)



I then spray-painted (electric gun) everything light gray and added some dark gray/black shadows with a paint brush (see casket pictures)





Here's what it looked like once assembled and ready to spook the little.... and not-so-little ones!



I hope this helped!

WickedBB70, that is just what I was looking for!!! Looks easy and looks real!! Thank you sooo much.

I used a roto zip tool with a cutting type bit and held a shop vac along as a free handed grout lines. I also used some water/torch methods to distress the blocks. Also used a soldering iron to cut in cracks and crevices.

All indentions painting dark, the whole thing rolled with gray, and then lots of drybrushing various highlight colors. Depending on your build, add lots of vines and greenery like moss.

Used very thin green to 'up paint' from bottom edges, and let it just drip back down...easy shading in some mold stains and what not.

Here is my Temple Wall from last year. It also had pneumatics to 'open' certain bricks outwards that formed a big face.



Full pic set Halloween 2008 - a set on Flickr

OMG!!! or should I say - OM"D" (Oh My Devil!)

Now my brain is working overtime - these walls and fences are sooo wonderfully over the top!
But for a simple wall/stone effect, you may want to invest in a bucket of white sealant that helps to keep the "stone" from disintegrating over time. We bought a big theater size bucket of stuff called FOAMCOAT from the ROSEBRAND company - rosebrand.com.

It wasn't cheap - cost 54.00 plus S&H for a gallon. But is goes a long way and really helps add both weight and a good surface to the foam to handle your best creep-it-up efforts. No more worries about paint spray eating at the foam. There is a special spray paint we also get at Michael's Crafts that is made just for styrofoam.

Good luck! And thanks for your question since now it has exposed all these other radical stone/fence/wall ideas!! BOO!

Originally Posted by pooky73

WickedBB70, that is just what I was looking for!!! Looks easy and looks real!! Thank you sooo much.

You're welcome!