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These Castle Walls |
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| They call us "Masters of Foam." Sure, OK, whatever. What we're really good at is covering blue foam insulation sheets in printed vinyl. Yep. We can cover almost anything. Give us a large enough can of 3M 77 Spray Adhesive and we'll stone some foam all day long!
Some of you may remember that we stoned a lot of foam last year for use on the front porch and the side walls. This year, we completed the illusion of full castle by stoning yet more foam and hanging it from the gutter across the front of the house. We found these neat hook spikes at Wal-Mart designed to hold 1/2" irrigation hose in place on the ground. Here's how we put the spikes into the foam. We started out with just a full sheet of blue insulation foam from Lowes, already covered in the Castle pattern Scene Setters vinyl from Party City, and the hook spike. |
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| We pulled in from the outer edge of the foam about 6 inches and pressed the back of the hook into the foam to give us a guide as we cut. We made sure that the ledge at teh top of the hook was level and even with the top of the foam (remeber, sorking on a project like this, the foam is inverted... you are looking at it from the builder's viewpoint) (also, I had to do heinous things to the color levels to make that pressed line show up; the foam really isn't that blue). |
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| Next, we made an angled cut into the foam. You have to make a hole large enough for both the hook and the adhesive you are using, in this case, Liquid Nails (3M 77 is inappropriate for this applicaiton). |
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| The second angled cut form the other side of the indentation makes the Subway sandwich cut under the location of the hook. It's an angled trough into which the hook will fit. |
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| The hook is laying next to its channel with the squeeze gun loaded for bear! |
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| A bead of Liquid Nails in the channel makes it ready to accept the hook. |
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| You press the hook into the bead of adhesive, press a bit harder to make it squeeze out the sides, then relax slowly. Exhale. Go on. The Liquid Nails won't get you high.
But, you do need to let the Liquid Nails cure overnight. We like 24 hours, but we have hung as quickly as 5 hours. Then, the hanging. You just lift the foam up over the edge of the gutter and let it rest against the gutter as you lower it. The hooks catch on the gutter and hold it in place. We have 9 pieces across the front of the house, plus 5 pieces on the front porch. You can see details of the porch foam in the 2004 section of the site. |
