DIY Foam Halloween Decoration | Halloween Costumes & Crafts
Foam is a fantastic material for creating creepy costumes and props, party decorations and crafts for Halloween. If you need inspiration for truly horrifying Halloween costumes, crafts and decorations that you can make yourself, using foam, we've got you covered.
Halloween Costume Ideas Using Foam
From frightening face masks to complete creepy costumes, foam can be cut and shaped to create something truly terrifying for a night out trick or treating or an invite only, Halloween party.
If there's a best costume competition, you're sure to win with your fearsome foam creation.
Foam is a material you can easily manipulate to form all kinds of shapes, which makes it great for witches hats, helmets, skulls, werewolf costumes and more. There are plenty of video tutorials you can find on YouTube to help you create a killer Halloween costume.
Halloween Party Decoration Ideas Using Foam
It wouldn't be a Halloween party without creepy crawlies or bats hanging from the ceiling, or goodie bags filled with terrifying toys. Foam is an extremely low-cost material you can use to create hundreds of decorations and party bag toys for a truly memorable, fright fest of a party.
Foam is available in an assortment of colours, including blood red LD33 Plastazote foam - for severed tongue decorations, black - for creating bats, black cats and spiders, yellow for eerie moon decorations and white for creating bowls of eyeballs.
It's great to use foam for party crafts, too. Kids (and adults) can have hours of fun making creepy creations out of foam.
Halloween Foam Pumpkins | DIY Halloween Pumpkins | Halloween Foam Lightbox
A family favourite craft activity over the Halloween period is the carving of pumpkins. However, this can be tiring and cumbersome – especially when children want to get involved. Gutting and carving a pumpkin is often left to an adult. Furthermore, real pumpkins understandably begin to look old and rotten not long after they have been cut. This is not ideal given most of us like to show our lanterns for a week or two. Luckily, there is a great alternative in place of using a pumpkin.
It is well known that many types of foam are brilliant crafting materials, and the same goes for their use in Halloween activities. Given that it is typically children who carve and enjoy pumpkin lanterns, there may also be concerns around the use of real candles within them. Using upholstery foam, an alternative jack-o-lantern like lightbox can be created. This is a fantastic solution for all – foam is soft and flexible, and can be easily carved, cut and glued by children and those not skilled in handicrafts.
There are a number of decorations that can be made for Halloween using foam; however, we’re going to focus on an easy to create lightbox. First, you need to decide on the size of your lantern. If you are after a lightbox similar in size to a large pumpkin, we’d recommend using our foam cut to size tool to order two 25cm by 25cm sheets and two 19cm by 25cm sheets, all approximately 3cm thick. At this thickness, it is best to carve out shapes in your foam using a craft knife, but scissors can be used. At the same time, order a top piece measuring 25cm by 25cm, and 1cm thick.
Your foam can be ordered in a range of colours, but given foam can be painted, this need not matter. For guidance on how to prepare and paint foam, read our dedicated blog here. Once all your foam pieces arrive, it’s time to get started. Take one of the 25cm by 25cm pieces and stencil out your desired design on one side, just as you would on a pumpkin. Next, take a craft knife (or scissors) and cut this out. For best effect, ensure the cutouts are a big enough size for the inner light to glow through once complete. Next, it’s time to put your lightbox together.
Using a strong adhesive, hold your pieces together in a cube shape. For these pieces to slot together (and therefore be fully topped and covered by the 25cm x 25cm top piece), you need to ensure that the 25cm by 25cm pieces are placed opposite from each other. This then means that the 19cm x 25cm pieces are also opposite one another. Use glue to seal the edges together and leave to dry. Once dry, apply adhesive to the top edge and attach your top piece. Leave to dry for another three to four hours. The underneath should be empty, leaving you with a bottomless, freestanding cube shape.
It’s now time to decorate! If you wish to paint your lightbox, ensure to prepare the foam properly and select an appropriate paint, as outlined in our detailed blog. You can also use the same clear adhesive to stick on other decorations, such as pom-poms and other Halloween decorations. Place your light inside and watch your design glow!
Halloween Foam Tombstones | DIY Halloween Tombstone | Halloween Tombstone Craft
For those of us who are into crafting, the Halloween season is the perfect time of year to get creative with a range of materials, including foam. Ranging from detailed costumes and spooky props to indoor and outdoor decorations, you’ll be surprised to learn what can be created with foam and a little bit of imagination.
For example, intricate costume elements can be created using cut to size foam components or to create standalone items such as skulls, witches’ hats and more. Likewise, there are numerous Halloween props you can easily create using closed-cell rigid polyethylene foam – think pumpkins, lanterns, axes, and other faux weapons. Did you know that foam props just like these are used in professional T.V. and film settings too? With foam, you can make your decorations look as realistic as they can be!
Whereas there’s lots of online guidance and ideas on making the perfect Halloween costume or costume prop, less is said about outdoor decorations. Despite outdoor decorations being more popular in the U.S., the growing popularity of Halloween in the U.K. encourages more of us to decorate the exterior of our homes with low cost yet high-quality decorations. Rather than purchasing a cheap plastic item, foam is a fantastic alternative. It can be easily decorated with spray paints and more to create realistic textures and overall material appearance.
Using large polyurethane foam sheets or having ordered a cut to size foam piece to your specification, you can create a realistic-looking tombstone – or similar - to go in your front garden.
To create a tombstone, you’ll need a piece of foam approximately 50cm tall, 25cm wide and 10cm deep. For larger tombstones or decorations that need to be sturdier, order two slightly thinner pieces of denser foam and stick these together using an all-purpose adhesive spray.
To carve inscriptions or a design on your tombstone, you will need a pencil and a sharp small craft knife. Use the pencil to mark out your intended design and begin to slice and carve into your foam to give it a weathered epitaph look. Next, make up the foam coat solution and paint it onto the foam, leaving it to dry thoroughly. Once dry, your tombstone can then be coated in a water-based paint of your choice, and this can be continually layered until you achieve the effect you desire. Keep as little paint on the brush as possible – do not saturate the foam – as this will give a ‘rough’ look to any grey or brown paint that is applied to create a stone or wood effect.
Once the entire tombstone is dry, you can continue decorating and adding additional details as you wish using more water-based paint. For example, a darker grey can then be traced within the letter inscriptions to make them more visible and weathered, and cracks and other surface textures can be added to the main stone. Extra detail can also be added in the form of spray paints, particularly to add effects like moss and dirt. When complete, your tombstone can be propped up in the garden!
eFoam stocks all kinds of foam you can use for Halloween.
With a huge range of foam types and grades at low-prices, contact us about the right foam for you and what you can achieve with foam this Halloween. We can cut foam to size and delivery is fast and free.
Alternatively, you can visit our purpose-built, foam converting facility in the heart of the Midlands and talk to a foam specialist about your Halloween costume needs in person.
