If you are like me, you are a big kid at heart when it comes to Halloween. Since I can't trick or treat anymore (not without raising some concerns from the neighbors) I do the next best thing--I deck the house out for Halloween! And one of my favorite creepy features is adding a few graves around the house! You can buy tombstones from a Halloween store but it is so much more fun to make your own...and put the names of your choice on the tombstone. (My sister's co-worker was not amused when by a fluke she drove by.)  Homemade Halloween decorations don't have to be cheesy either! Here is a quick and dirty on how to make a great halloween tombstone for your house.

Just to let you know, I got this idea from this really cool Halloween Craft book. I started out just looking to make spiders (and now we're making a giant tarantula that is really cool) and other homemade halloween decorations, then I found the instructions for Halloween tombstones and now we are going to town! The author said I could put a link to the book here.

OK, to tombstones. In short, you can make a tombstone out of cardboard, wood, or styrofoam. I am not a hacksaw kind of woman personally, so my preference is cardboard or styrofoam.

Cardboard

The thicker the better obviously for a great Halloween tombstone. You can find double-wall corrated cardboard (it's 2 thin sheets of cardboard with a wavy piece of cardboard sandwiched glued in between). Check with your company for any boxes you can take home or check with clothing stores for clean boxes. Or buy one from a storage outfit like U-Haul.

Trace your pattern and cut. If you like, paint it...see more below.

To protect it from the rain, crucial if you want it to last, you can cover it in a sheet of plastic. You can find clear plastic sheeting where packing supplies are or even thin paint drop cloth which you can find in the hardware store. Best to me is the sticky shrink-warp used for packing. Tape down the plastic in the back of your tombstone.

Styrofoam

These make nice thick Halloween tombstones. To me, the best way to find it is to just buy a sheet of styrofoam from the hardware store, in the insulation section. They come sheets that are in 4' x 8' sheets, so you can make several tombstones from just one sheet. They'll run $10 to $15.

To cut the styrofoam without breaking it you need a very sharp knife like an utility blade (also found in the hardware store or even dollar stores). Take your time while cutting and the styrofoam shouldn't break. Some say you can use a less sharp knife, even a butter knife if you heat the knife over a flame.

Painting Your Tombstone

Paint your cardboard or styrofoam tombstone. Tempura paint works well - it's not too heavy but dark enough and any arts and crafts department or store carries it. Even better, a can of cheap spray paint. Paint it solid gray first, and after it dries, you can go over it with a different gray or white or black. Dabbing the second color with a sponge or if using spray paint, just spray spurts in patches for a stony effect.

Use black paint for the epitath. Some good ones you can use are:

• Barry DaLive
• I.M. Agonner
• Ben Dismembered
• Pedestrians Have the Right Of Way!
• Dare to Disturb
• U. R. Next
• Rest in Pieces (body parts scattered around)

Here's the tricky part, making your Halloween tombstone stand up without falling over after a few days. Creativity counts here. You could use stiff wire or coat hangers, wooden braces, camping spikes, sticks and tape, etc. In my experience, it is simplest to use wooden tomato stakes. Shove your tomstone carefully over the stake (if you are using cardboard, you can only do this if you are using double walled cardboard) and plant that stake in the ground. Your Halloween tombstone is upright and ready to provide morbid humor all October.