Carved Foam Mushroom

Mushrooms carved from foam, for decorations, because I've never seen something similar in craft stores. Can be used for fairy gardens, in flower pots, for tabletop games, anywhere you would like a large toadstool/mushroom.

XPS foam - also known as insulation foam. Usually comes in 1 inch or 3/4 inch thick

sharp knife - a fillet knife would be ideal, but a kitchen knife would also work (exacto knife is too small for this)

sandpaper - 320 grit for shaping, optional finer grades if you want it smoother

hot glue - fastest and easiest, but any strong glue should work, to join the top and bottom together

paint - acrylic would be easiest, but spray paint might also work, if used correctly

*OPTIONAL: paper mache, cement, air dry clay, etc - whatever you want to coat your mushroom with, to give it strength and texture

The size you choose here will be the widest points of your mushroom. If you want to make a larger/thicker mushroom, you can hot glue layers together, but that will not be covered here

Just what it says on the tin

Same for this step

Cut off enough corners so that your pieces are rounded and looking like the final form that you intended

Using the 320 grit sandpaper, sand off more corners so that the pieces are truly rounded. You can then use the finer grit sandpaper if you wanted a smoother surface

Use hot glue to stick the stem and top pieces together.

*At this point, you can cover with paper mache, or clay, or whatever suits your purpose (none of which are covered here)

Paint it however you like, and ta-da!

I did cover these mushrooms with paper mache, just because I like the texture it has.

(I am seriously considering making a 2 foot tall mushroom and coat it with cement to make a garden statue, because those are $$$)

Welp, that's all there is to carving a mushroom out of XPS foam. Hope you give it a try, would be so thrilled to see your take on it. Happy crafting!

(This piece of woodland-y wall hanging was made using mushrooms I made, and decorative mosses that you can get at craft stores. The bracket mushrooms are also carved from XPS foam and painted, (might make an Instructable on it later if there's enough interest) The skinny mushrooms are just tissue paper and florist wire, painted)

Oh and check out my Instagram. Let me know if there's something you would like me to make an Instructable for.

https://www.instagram.com/beamercraft/