Columns out of soda boxes

I drink a lot of soda and so I throw away a ton of soda boxes.  I was thinking that I should come up with some way to use them as a prop.  So one day I started playing with them and came up with an idea for entrance columns to our Haunted Hotel. 

Here is how I made them:





Materias:
2 24 pack soda boxes
4 12 pack soda boxes
2 candy dishes from Dollar Tree
2 packs of moss from Dollar Tree
1 pack of kitchen sponges from Dollar Tree 
1 pack of flicker battery powered tea light candles from Dollar Tree
clear spar varnish
Lots of Elmers Glue and newspaper
hot glue gun and glue
paints


I started with a 24 pack box on the bottom and stacked two 12 pack boxes on top.  I used tape to hold everything together.  In the picture below you will see that I cut out bricks and glued those to the sides.  This turned out to be a waste of time because the detail was lost from the thickness of the newspaper. 

Next I gave everything a few coats of paper mache.  I used watered down Elmer's glue as my mache paste.  Be sure to let each coat dry completely before adding the next coat.  I used the paper mache to secure the stem of the candy dish to the top of the column.  I also painted the inside of each dish with my glue mixture to give it a frosted look.  These will hold the Dollar Tree flicker tea lights.

Once it was all dry I wrapped newspaper around the dishes and taped it into place to keep them from getting painted.  Paint each column black.  Spray paint is fastest but you will need to brush paint the top to protect the dishes.  I then sponged on white paint for the bricks.  When that dried I went over them again with grey.  Then again with a rust red.  I did the red while the grey was still wet so it would blend better.  After everything was dry I cleaned up all of the lines around the bricks with a small brush and some black paint. I also painted the bottom emblems and the letters.  Once everything was dry I painted the columns with the spar varnish.  Even through it said clear on the can it dried a yellowish color which really helped with the aging look. Don't forget to paint the bottoms.  This will help with dew but I wouldn't recommend leaving these out in the rain.    It took 2 days for my varnish to dry completely and not feel sticky.  I used a hot glue gun to glue the moss to the columns.


~If you make some of these please send me pictures!