HALLOWEEN TOMBSTONES - HOME MADE
PLYWOOD HALLOWEEN TOMBSTONES

At first you might think, tombstones made from plywood, how good can those look? While they don't have the thickness of a foam tombstone, when made using pre-made tombstone pattern templates and with a little painting skills, they can look pretty good!

The Winfield Collection specializes in do-it-yourself project patterns and has a large selection of paper transfer templates specifically designed for Halloween, including tombstones. Their "Gravestones" Halloween package comes with a full dozen different tombstone design patterns.
 

Transferring the Pattern
Creating plywood Halloween tombstones is very straight forward and begins by placing a sheet of the special pattern transfer paper onto the size and thickness of plywood as indicated in the tombstone pattern instructions.

Next the pattern you want to use is laid on top of the transfer sheet face down close to the edge of the plywood. Lastly, you transfer the full-size pattern lines for all of the tombstones onto the plywood by tracing the pattern using a pen, pencil or stylus.

Cutting out the Pattern
The next step is to cut out all the wood pieces along the traced lines using the saw appropriate for the project, typically this will be a coping saw, scroll saw or jigsaw.

Simple patterns usually take no time at all, while more complex designs take a little longer and require you to be more precise. After cutting all the pieces off you can drill any holes required and lightly sand the wood if necessary.

Painting the Tombstone
To finish the project paint the gravestones with the colors as indicated in the instructions or to suite your taste. Using the areas and lines created by the template makes painting as easy as “paint by number” and ensures your project will look great when you’re finished.

For the base color we bought a gallon of flat gray exterior latex paint and sprayed all of the tombstones at once. For the detail work, we used regular acrylic craft paint and artist brushes.

Securing the Tombstones
For our plywood Halloween tombstones, we just nailed an eighteen inch long survey stake to the back of the tombstone and pushed it into the ground. See our article on positioning tombstones for more information.