HALLOWEEN TOMBSTONES & MONUMENTS

Needless to say, tombstones are the center-piece of any graveyard. Buying and/or making your Halloween tombstones and monuments is only the first step in creating the ultimate atmosphere for your yard haunt or haunted graveyard. But there are many more things you can do to add realism and heighten the effect your tombstones and graveyard will have on your visitors on Halloween night. For lots of information about Halloween Tombstones visit HalloweenTombstones.com.

Homemade Halloween Tombstones

Off The Shelf Tombstones

High End Commercial Tombstones

The placement and securing of your Halloween tombstones is very important, both for appearance and to keep them from falling over. We like to keep our cemetery looking old and foreboding. Use as many different styles of tombstones as you can and place them unevenly throughout your graveyard. Be sure to set some of them crooked or misaligned to give it that unkempt look.

Use as many different styles of tombstones as you can afford to buy and/or make. Try to buy better quality tombstones if you can, they look much more realistic than less expensive ones and will last longer since they can take more abuse. If this is your first year to add tombstones or a graveyard to your Halloween haunt start out with a dozen or more then add a few more every year. In a few years you'll have a very impressive graveyard filled with tombstones for your Halloween haunt!

When arraigning your tombstones remember that graves in a "real" cemetery are usually spaced about 7 feet from row to row, but you can take a few liberties with distances. While you don't have to space them out just right, you do want to give the illusion of there really being graves there, so you want to space out your tombstones. Leave at least a foot or two between the stones side to side, and 4 feet or more from row to row. We like to tilt some of the tombstones so that the graveyard looks old and dilapidated.

Securing the Tombstones
We have used several different methods to secure our tombstones to the ground that work very well.

Method #1 - First carefully drill two 3/8" holes into the bottom of the tombstone, a couple of inches from each end. Now take two 16" pieces of 3/8" dowel (sharpened at both ends) and carefully drive one end half way up into the bottom of the Tombstone. Lightly set the tombstone with it's spikes onto the ground to make an impression of where the spike holes will go. Using an extra sharpened dowel, drive it eight inches into the ground where your spike markings are and remove. You can now push the tombstone with spikes into the holes.

Method #2 - At most hardware stores you can buy large steel spikes (they look like giant nails). Measure and cut a piece of 1/2"x 6" board so that it is four inches longer than the width of the tombstone, two inches on each side. Drill a centered hole four to six inches from each end one drill bit size smaller than the diameter of the spike. Hammer the two spikes through the holes. Set the bottom of the tombstone over the top of the spikes just hard enough to make indentations for drilling. Drill the two spike holes into the tombstone. Apply white glue (Elmer's) to the spikes and inside of the spike holes, and push the spikes into the tombstone holes all the way. To setup, dig a trench the same size as the wooden based and sit the base and tombstone into it. Cover the base with dirt just above the edge of the tombstone.