Cross Tombstone

I have been wanting to create a cross tombstone and had an old one from Party City that was broken last year. I kept it and used it as a template for a larger home made one. I have been having a hard time finding a way to cut the shapes out of my tombstones, I had bought a hot knife for foam from Michael's Craft store, it was really flimsy and broke in just a few minutes. I found some expensive ones that would work online but they are close to 200$; the reason I started making my own was to save money. I know it would be a good investment but not at this point in time. I found a wire cutter in the garage that works off of the air compressor, it did an alright job cutting out the basic shape but didn't go all the way through, I used a wood saw for the rest, can't get too detailed, but as long as I keep the shapes basic it will work ok. The best thing about the wire cutter is that it spins and can buff out some edge details that make the foam look more like stone, it takes the place of sand paper.





The detail work is another plastic type candle holder I found at a yard sale, I unscrewed the part that holds the candle and glued it on to the stone with some liquid nails. I put some moss on the tombstone, living in Missouri there is moss everywhere and I just pulled some up off the ground in the back yard. I plan on putting some more moss on the bottom and sides of this tombstone.



I found some of these changing pictures at Michael's they are new for this year and are about 2" tall, they are "old timey" photos that change the people into skeletons. I pasted this one on the tombstone.





This was an addition to the stone, I hadn't carved anything at first and then decided to just add a year at the bottom.