Start by building your tombstones by gluing craft sticks together with the glue gun. See notes section for details on each of the Hocus Pocus tombstones.
Jumbo craft sticks, Regular craft sticks
Once you have your base designs, cut a jumbo popsicle stick in half and glue one half in the center of the top of the popsicle sticks and the other half in the bottom center of the popsicle sticks, giving them more of a foundation so they don’t come apart.
Finish the tombstones by drawing a straight line about the bottom of the tombstones (a ruler is helpful) and cutting off the bottom of the popsicles sticks to create a straight line.
Finish the building portion of this tombstone craft by cutting the ends off of a jumbo craft stick for each of the tombstones. Then carefully glue the tombstone onto the cut craft stick to give it a stand so it’ll stand up!
Start by painting them with a base of the light gray craft paint.
Light gray paint
While the light gray paint is still wet, gently press the tips of the paintbrush into the dark gray paint and then press the tips of the paintbrush onto the still wet tombstones, almost like if you were doing sponge painting.
Dark gray paint
Do this all over the tombstone to give it a weathered look and like the stone of a tombstone. Add a little more light gray paint to the top of the gray paint if you’d like. Then let paint dry.
Start by using a fine tip black permanent marker to add detailing on each of the tombstones. Adding swirls, circles, and outlines really gives the tombstones the depth and dimension to make these stand out!
While the marker is drying, print out the tombstone sayings if you’re making these Hocus Pocus themed. You can either print them directly on gray or print on white and color in with a gray marker.
Tombstone pattern, White or gray printer paper
Cut and glue the tombstone sayings onto your tombstones using a glue stick. Let them dry and your tombstone crat is complete!
Notes
Tombstone Designs
Emily Binx – three jumbo craft sticks in the middle, two regular crafts on either side of the jumbo ones, all lined up the same at the bottom. Glue those together then cut a little cross out of a regular craft stick to glue to the top.
Thackery Binx – five jumbo craft sticks lined up in a graduated pattern starting with the lowest on the outside and the highest in the middle so it looks kind of like stairs. You’ll cut off the tops and the ends later so it actually looks like a square/flat tombstone design.
Billy Butcherson – five jumbo craft sticks lined up again in a graduated pattern starting with the lowest on the outside and highest in the middle. You’ll cut off the ends to make the bottom flat and the top will still be rounded.
Make these with liquid craft glue instead of hot glue if you want kids to make them on their own but add in some time to allow the glue to dry before moving onto the next step.You can use any type of paint for these but craft paint dries fastest, which is why I recommend it. But if you're doing these with little kids, you my want to use washable kid-friendly paint and markers instead!Print the tombstone patterns on gray paper to simplify the process for these. If you don't have gray paper, you can print on white as well and color them in with a gray marker.Let kids get creative in cutting and decorating their own tombstones if you don't want to go specific to Hocus Pocus. There are a lot of shapes and designs you can make with craft sticks and markers!