Thread: Protecting store-bought styrofoam tombstones

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We're new to this whole thing of "make your own Halloween" stuff, but are planning a party for 2010 and we need to get started!! :-)

My question is this: We have about 60 (and growing) of the styrofoam tombstones from places like Big Lots, K-Mart, Target, and Wal-Mart. We put them on our porch right now but we want to put some in the yard. Our fear is that even a light mist will cause the paints to run and the designs to get messed up.

Plus we're just plain concerned about their longevity.

Is there anything anyone can suggest that we use to coat them (spray them, preferably) with to protect them? If they were wood, it would be polyurethane for instance. I went into engineering instead of organic chemistry for a living, so please try to keep it simple for a newbie. :-)

Thanks for any help!

I have some of the store-bought ones as well as ones I made myself over the years. I use a matte finish clear sealer over them and haven't run into any problems yet. The ones I made are at least 6 years old, and still look great. Can't promise anything with the store bought ones - this will be my first year using them. Let me do a search and see if I can find the stuff I sprayed mine with. Please hold. LOL

Thanks for holding....
It must have been a Krylon paint. I can't remember off the top of my head and of course I'm at work, and the paint is at home.

I'm patient enough to wait until you get home. :-) Thanks for checking!

It takes a few years for the paint to wear away, unless you touch or wipe them off while wet. I've repainted several of my older ones with latex paint and then oversprayed with "granite" paint, as opposed to trying to seal in the cheap black/grey paint from the start.

Craig

Thanks for that tip. Can you recommend a specific paint to spray over? Like I said, we've not done this before, and I'm not a painter, so any specifics would be appreciated.

FWIW, I've set stones out in erly October and they have been exposed to some crappy weather over and over. They still look fine. I wouldn't worry about sealing them.