Tips 'N' Tricks

Page 2

	Quick Tip; Tired of pulling out those dried in screws, hunting around for an electrical cap to cover the hole in you tubes of chaulk. Grab that hotglue gun you've been using and cover the tip with glue. Keep rolling it or turning it so the glue doesn't fall off, add a couple layers and there ya go, all sealed. It pulls off fairly easy, you can either reuse it by adding a little glue on the inside or just put more glue on when your finished. Works for me!!!
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
DECORATING An idea popped into my head on another way to help decorate tombstones. Watching a cake decorating show, I thought that using there way of using icing to decorate cakes, I could do the same with decorating tombstones. I tested this idea with positive results! I started with the 3 products pictured to the right.
	I went to Walmart and picked up several tips and the icing bags. The prices vary, average price about 1.30. You can also find them in sets of 3 for a little over 2.00. The white piece you see in the pic is a coupler, it connects the bag to the tips. You of course need at least one of those. Most of these are simple to use and pretty straight forward on what they make, however the leaf and rose are a bit more complicated, you can find directions on how to make them online.
I started out on a scrape sheet of foam making leaves, lines, shells, stars, whatever designs I could think of. When I filled up the board I scraped it off and went at it again. Then feeling confident enough I set out to put designs on my first project, a monument.
	I started with making, in my mind were eaves to a house. then I coverd them with vines and little leaves. This I thought came out pretty good. I let these dry over night. The next afternoon, my first setback. Actually 2, I used joint compund for this, once dry it was very brittle and broke at the slightest touch, also it was not sticking to the foam.
To solve the not sticking to the foam I tried these 2 products. I tested both, the result was the same.They both work great. In fact I would say any average white glue will work. If you use the contact cement make sure it is the NONFLAMMABLE version, the regular version will melt foam. With Tacky or Elmers glue you want to thin it out with a bit of water, then brush it on and let dry. Brush it over your design and on to the foam.
	Kind of hard to tell, but thats what I've done here. It also helps the joint compound be not so brittle.
Once it dries, paint over it and there ya go! In working with (testing) all 3 products at the top of this section, The best one was the Crack Shot High Performance Spackling Paste. It didn't shrink, it was alot sturdier then the other two, and the thickness of it was closest to the decorator icing, which is a plus.
	The tips are not the only things you can use from the cake decorating world. These things can help you out also. They have little teeth on the underside which will make impressions you can follow. Kinda like connect the dots! LOL
Just put them on your foam where you want them and give them a good push! Then with what ever tip you choose follow connect the dots. I don't know the price on these, they were given to me, so my cost was nothing. they have alot of different designs, the ones in the pic are just the ones I used. One more quick tip, keep a container of water handy, When you switch tips, toss the used tip in the water so the spackle or whatever you use stays wet until you clean it. Kinda a pain cleaning out the dried stuff!
	Just follow the steps above and have some fun! These where for my Demon Monument, which will be posted in my How-to's section.
For those of you asking...... yes I did the roses also, still need some pratice! LOL
Main Menu	Will be adding more as I find them or remember them. LOL