Halloween Foam Tombstone: Adventures with a Cheap Rotary Cutting Tool

     Each year I try making a new foam tombstone for my Halloween cemetery.  I've had good success using an X-acto knife to carve insulation foam and craft foam and okay success carving Styrofoam, but the problem with these methods is that the carving is so time consuming.
     If you watch video tutorials on carving foam tombstones, you'll notice that many people use a Dremel with a special blade and attachment for their carving.  The cutting process is much faster and the results are amazing.  However, Dremels can be expensive.  What if you want the speed of cutting foam tombstones that a Dremel gives, but you don't have the money?
     Enter the inexpensive rotary cutting tool.  You can find these at discount hardware stores for as little as $5.  My brother gave me one as a gift last fall and I figured I'd see how it worked.  I've never used one for carving before, but instead of doing the sensible thing and practicing on scrap foam before getting started, I just went for it.  I used the thinnest tip it came with for carving the letters and a thicker one for the scratches.  Given that this was my first attempt with a rotary cutting tool and I wasn't very patient, I think it came out pretty well, about comparable to the stones I carved with an X-acto knife.

Materials:
*Insulation foam
*Rotary cutting tool
*Paint in various shades of gray
*Paintbrush
*Hand saw or bread knife
*Pen

Directions:

*Decide what shape and size tombstone you would like.  If you do a quick search, you can find tons of templates and design ideas online.  This one's a reference to Brian's story Fire at Dusk.

*Using your saw or bread knife (a decent substitute if you don't have a saw on hand), cut your foam to size.  If you're going for a narrower stone, you might be able to get two stones out of this one sheet of foam.

*Sketch or trace on the design you would like to use for the top of the headstone and cut it out using the saw.

*Sand down any rough edges with sandpaper.  You may also want to sand down any sharp corners to make the stone look aged, if that's the style you're going for.

*Print out your design and center it on the foam and then trace over it with a pen, pressing down hard enough to indent the foam.

*Trace over your indentation with a pen

*Cut out the lettering using your rotary cutting tool.  You'll want to trace the outline of the letter first with the tool and then go back and cut out the inside.

*Paint the stone using the darker gray color, making sure to fill in all of the crevices to the best of your ability.  I had to do two coats to get all the nooks and crannies.  If you have fine details, you can use the end of a needle to squeeze paint into the crevices.

*Combine the two shades of gray until you get a color that is a shade or two lighter than the dark gray.  Paint the surface of the stone, but skip the inscription.  This will enhance the visibility of the inscription.