Walking the queue of the Haunted Mansion is one of my favorite spots in the parks. The attention to detail of every aspect of that ride inside and out is just amazing. Now at Disneyland they have the stacked crypts but at Walt Disney World they have the iconic individual tombstones across the Haunted Mansion grounds. So I wanted to recreate those iconic tombstones for my own yard to display for Halloween!
Now I have to say this may be my favorite spooky season DIY yet! This project wasn’t hard but it did take a lot more time and effort to complete. With that being said, I absolutely love having these in my yard for Halloween. So let’s get going and I’ll walk you through how to make your own!
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WHAT YOU’LL NEED
You don’t need a ton of supplies to make these tombstones, just a few quick things and some patience. Here’s what I used:
• 4×8 plywood board
• Paintbrushes and foam brushes
HOW TO MAKE YOUR TOMBSTONES
To start, you need trace out your tombstones. I used a 4×8 sheet of plywood and to make sure they were all similar in size, I cut my 4×8 down the middle so I had two 2×8 boards. I could have made 10 tombstones out of it, but I chose to only do 9.
Once I cut my board in half, I started tracing my tombstones out. Most of them were about 14 inches wide and two feet tall but I did two that were shorter and wider to mix things up. I just got on Google and looked up different Haunted Mansion tombstones and then traced them out to match on my board. Once I had all my tombstones traced, it was time to cut.
Because the designs I chose had all sorts of curves and angles, I used a jigsaw to cut my tombstones out. Just make sure you have your wood on a stable surface so you don’t hurt yourself. If your wood splinters on the edge as your cutting don’t worry, we’ll fix that in a minute.
Once my tombstones were cut out, the edges were pretty rough. So I took a palm sander and sanded the entire tombstone, making sure to really get all the edges and corners smooth. I did go through a few sand paper replacements to do all of them so make sure you have a few extras on hand. Sanding them down will help make them easier to paint and prevent your paintbrushes from getting ruined!
Once you’ve sanded them down, it’s time to paint. For the base paint for my tombstones, I did two layers of dark grey paint. I used a bigger foam paintbrush for this so I got a smooth finish. You’ll notice that the grain of the wood will still show through but that’s okay, no need to worry about that.
Once my tombstones were painted, I wanted to add dimension to them. I took pewter grey paint and added a little bit of black and the smallest amount of white and mixed it until I got a color just a little darker than the grey I used as the base color. Once I had the right color, I took a larger paintbrush and randomly painted streaks across each tombstone so they looked a little weathered and distressed.
Once that paint was dry, it was time to add more dimension to some of my tombstones. Some of my tombstones were based off ones in the parks that had tiered bottoms or something like that so to replicate that, I used paint to shade mine. I took my paint and mixed them to get different shades to get the dimension and shading I wanted on my tombstones. To create shadows, I painted a line of the paint and then I dipped my brush in water and used that water to lighten up the line and drag the watered down paint down more so it gave it a shaded, 3D look.
Once your tombstones are all painted and textured, all that’s left to do is add the writing to each one. I originally tried to do this with sharpie but it didn’t show up enough against the grey paint. So what I did is I traced the words and designs of each tombstone in sharpie and then I used a small paintbrush and went over the writing with black paint. That made it stand out much more and looked way better.
The only tombstone that required more than black paint was the Madame Leota tombstone. For this one I just put black, pewter grey, and white paint on a plate and mixed them together to make different shades of grey and used those to paint and shade her face.
After the tombstones are all painted and dry, it’s time to get them ready to stick in your yard. I got a pack of wooden stakes to use to stick them into my grass. To make them match the tombstones, I just put a quick layer of dark grey paint on them and let them dry.
Now it’s time to assemble! To secure the stakes to the tombstones, I left 5 inches of the stake hanging out from the bottom of the tombstone so I had it long enough to go into the ground and keep them put. Then, I made sure the stake was in the middle of the tombstone, applied some liquid nails between the stake and the back of the tombstone, then from the front of the tombstone I stapled 3-4 staples to secure the tombstone to the stake even better. Then I set them out to allow the liquid nails to harden completely. Then I just touched up the tombstones with a little paint where the staples were if they needed it.
All that’s left to do now is to get those tombstones in the ground. If the dirt/grass in your yard is soft enough, you can just push them into the grass but be careful not to push too hard so you don’t break the stakes. My yard wasn’t very soft so I took a piece of wood, put it on top of the stake on the back of the tombstone, and used a hammer to hammer them into the ground. The extra board I put on top of the stakes prevented me from damaging or splintering the top of the stakes so try to find something like that to make a buffer as hammer them in.
And there you have it! Fun Haunted Mansion tombstones for your own yard, perfect for spooky season! For more spooky season DIY’s, click here.
