Happy Halloween!!
EDIT: And today’s photo:
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These look great. We made some out of plywood many years ago. Ours don’t look nearly as good and are starting to warp from sitting outside through the years.
I should show these to my wife so we can redo them.
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What do you paint them with? I’m assuming most spray can paint will make them go melty (which could look cool I guess)
Exterior latex enamel (used leftover paint from the recycle reuse center). Use a brush and slop it on for the carve first then let it dry and follow with a lightly coated foam roller for the raised part. Not terribly complicated. No spray was used.
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These look great.
I used Drylok when I painted mine. The paint has sand or some texture that makes it feel and look like stone.
I love who you’ve honored with your headstones. I’ve done a few headstone foam CNC carvings, but I never know what name/saying to put on them. Very nice work.
What do you paint them with?
A mixture of drywall joint compound and exterior latex paint works well to protect foam. The joint compound provides a bit of a shell to protect the foam. This mixture is sometimes called “monster mud.”
I’m assuming most spray can paint will make them go melty
A base layer of monster mud will protect the foam allowing spray paint to be used. If you want “melty” to make the foam look weathered, an interesting technique is to use a spray bottle of water to coat the foam in water beads, then hit the foam with a propane torch. I was amazed at how effective this technique is in making foam look weathered.
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Easy process, beautiful results. Thanks for sharing!
Dang, I never would have thought of that one lol Neat.
I made a video on how to distress letters having never done it before I was surprised how easy and effective it turned out to be. Very subjective on your torch residence time and amount of water, but degree of difficulty is not bad at all.
I made a fireplace at work using foam blocks glued to plywood. I used spray paint to paint the ‘bricks’. The paint ate the foam, but made an awesome brick look.
The ‘fireplace’ was an old apple iMac running a continuous loop on youtube. The iMac put off enough heat to actually feel like a small fireplace 
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I did a quick search and found a video of someone using water and a heat gun to distress foam: https://youtu.be/vEpFd1oqwDA?t=500
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