Thread: Easy Tombstones

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This is a quick technique I came up with to create my own tombstones. As you no doubt know, normal spray paint “melts” the polystyrene. By masking areas that you want to remain as detail on your tombstone, then spraying with aerosol paint you can achieve an embossed design. Also by applying a stencil pattern you can also get an engraved design.

You can also achieve several layers in your design and detail, which I hope to be able to demonstrate in this how to.

You will need

Expanded Polystyrene Sheet (The thicker the better)
Masking Tape
Sharp Knife
Marker Pen
Adhesive Letters (Various Sizes)
Spray Paint

I was fortunate enough to get some good size and thickness polystyrene pieces free from the store I work at. Many stores discard the packaging that comes with their products, so it might be worth asking around in stores for any polystyrene that they do not require.

First decide on the shape, inscription and any design you want for your tombstone.

Draw the tombstone shape onto the polystyrene sheet (making sure that the edge for the base is square to the sides)

Mask out the areas of your design. At this stage it is not required to cut the shape of your tombstone out.


For the lettering, I bought adhesive letters from Walmart (the larger letters) and the Dollar Store.

You can print out the inscription on thin card, in the largest font that would fit the tombstone, and then cut out the letters with a craft knife. These would then lightly glued into place on the tombstone.



I decided to include a gothic cross design that I come upon on the web. For the gothic cross, I used blank CD labels to draw the design onto. This gave a perfect pre-cut adhesive circle to work with. (The stencil for the design is made in two parts). The first part of the cross was put in place.

Once everything is in place, lightly spray the entire tombstone with spray paint, being as even as possible. The paint will slowly react with the polystyrene that is not masked off.



Allow the first coat to dry. The Cross design was removed and the second part overlaid on the cross pattern.



The tombstone can then be given a second coat.



Once this is dry, remove all the masking tape and lettering.



Finally cut the shape of the tombstone out.



In all the process of creating the tombstone took around 3 hours.

If you want to add cracks to the tombstone, this can be done by scoring out with a screwdriver.

All that is left is to paint the tombstone, remembering of course not to use spray paint!

Thats FANTASTIC!!! I will have to try that out. Thanks.

That turned out great! And very authentic to stones I've seen in my area.

I have yet to make any tombstones. (In the past my focus has been on interior props for our parties.) I've considered it for this year since we're talking a year off from the party but the whole engraving process kinda turned me off. This technique seems more up my alley. Thanks for the heads up!

Very nice!

Great looking stones Herman...I like the effects it leaves. Now if I can just finish your last tutorial on skeleton hands...I could start my next tombstones.

wow, very original. that really looks easy and fun. turned out really, really nice!

Great job! Does anyone use concrete to have a stone look?

we went to the cemetary to put flowers and i saw a different kind of a tombstone. i thought it was cast iron but my husband said he thought it was more cast aluminnum. maybe poured into a mold. there was a seam so there was a front and back and then they were connected. it was very old but in very good shape. it wasn't like the stone or cement ones from that age that had moss or chips and hardly readable. it was very pretty.

great idea! I'll have to give that a try!

hallorenescene, I've seen some of those "stones" made of metal, usually very old, and also very pretty, if I could only figure out how to make something like those I could do some really evil things in my display.He-he