I’ve seen some large fabric pop-up coffin decorations the past few years and I wanted to try to recreate my own. The price tag on many of them usually cost $30 or more and I only spent $3 on mine! I will confess – I am a bit of an impatient crafter (this is something I’m working on), therefore my lines are never straight and I tend to eyeball things too often, but the imperfections make it unique, right? Here’s how I made my DIY Coffin prop from foam board from the Dollar Tree if you’d like to make one of your own:
Supplies: I only ended up using three pieces of foam board out of the four pieces I bought (note,this makes a small scale coffin). I also used a hot glue gun and glue sticks, pen or marker and a tape measure if you want to be accurate. I used acrylic paints to decorate and to add the lettering.
STEP 1: I sketched out the top shape of my coffin and cut it out. I then used the top section and traced it on a second piece of foam board and cut my second piece, which is the back of my coffin. Using the two pieces, I measured a 2.5 inch wide spacer pieces to give the coffin a three dimensional look. I cut two long rectangular 2.5 inch wide pieces along the sides of the coffin and trimmed them to size (see photos below).
STEP 2: I used a hot glue gun to assemble all of the pieces along the back end of the coffin. I glued spacers to back and then glued the top section on.
STEP 3: Now that your coffin has dried and is fully assembled, you can decorate and embellish as desired. I ran out of white paint and was going to go with a more antique weathered look, but ended up using brown and gold and created something more…shiny!
Now you’re ready to haunt your halls for a lot less! Saving money on Halloween decor is always a good feeling!
Halloween Head 