Prom-isingly Creative

Spray Foam Magazine – Late Summer 2025 – Being the go-to crafter when an event needs decor is a big responsibility, but choosing the right materials can simplify the process while upping the ante on the final result. Just ask Tammy Feiler of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, who used around 40 cans of GE Gaps and Cracks foam to bring the bayou to John Hardin High School’s school prom.

The theme was “A Night on the Bayou,” so with the help of a small team of students and fellow faculty member Teresa Punjack, she assembled four cypress trees—each two feet in diameter, ranging from five to nine feet tall—made almost entirely from foam and recycled materials. Against the picturesque bayou background, the trees looked almost too real, thanks in part to the rugged and realistic spray foam bark and Feiler’s keen eye for realism.

Feiler “absolutely loves being creative with spray foam,” and it shows. Spray foam has long been a part of Feiler’s crafting arsenal, and as the school’s office manager, she’s incorporated foam into projects even before the prom cypress trees. Over the holidays, she decorated the teachers' workroom in a gingerbread-themed winter wonderland, “frosting” the top of the doorway with swirls of spray foam pseudo-icing as a finishing touch. When thinking of ways to make this year’s prom pop, Feiler turned to spray foam for its versatility, malleability, and durability– ideal qualities when creating a seven-to-nine-foot centerpiece.  

The cypress trees that grow in the swampy bayou ecosystems have an otherworldly vibe. The trunks fan out at the base, and their thick bark and tendril-like root systems resemble folds in the pages of a book. To nail this unique look, Feiler chose for the tree’s base a sturdy and scalable substrate, a favorite of shoestring party planners everywhere– cardboard. Recycled cardboard, to be exact. Feiler sent out a request for cardboard boxes and corrugated materials, and it wasn’t long before she had plenty to work with.  

With a crew of several students in tow, Feiler and Punjack gathered their supplies and prepared to grow cypress trees out of board and foam. For the first step, they cut out enough large cardboard circles to combine together for the height of the tree. After establishing the cardboard base and building it up to the right height, they began to craft the bark by wrapping the cardboard base in corrugated material–think the thin brown paper frequently used in packaging. They twisted the corrugated paper around the cardboard before securing it with masking tape, wrinkling and folding it enough to give the tree some texture and the foam a better surface to adhere.

The students helped twist the paper into the distinctive shape of the cypress tree’s roots before securing it to the trunk’s base. With the cardboard and paper layer nearly complete, it almost resembled a tree, but there was still work to do before it was ready for the bayou. The next step was the best step: time to break out the cans of foam. 

They used GE Big Gaps and Cracks canned foam, specifically the type that expands up to one inch– ideal for giving the trees realistic texture without over-expanding and making a mess. They’d be working in the school’s cafeteria, since it was a well-ventilated space with plenty of room to spread out. After laying down plastic to protect the floors from sticky overspray, Feiler and Punjack gave the student helpers a quick tutorial in canned foam best-practices.

Once they’d gone over the safety basics and discussed how to apply the foam, they turned the students loose on the trees with multiple cans of GE Big Gaps and Cracks. Soon enough, they’d sprayed every inch of the soon-to-be-trees with foam. While it dried, they moved onto other sections. 

For the tree branches, they used a pool noodle, which they cut into sections, wrapped in tape, and then sprayed with foam. Using lightweight noodles meant the branches could be easily removed and then reattached without any trouble. The detachable branches also allowed for easier transport– perfect for when Feiler needed to take the trees home to add finishing touches, and also for fitting the finished trees through the doors on prom night. 

“I could disassemble them to load into my car, then put them back together at the school using dowel rods stuck through the pool noodle’s inner circle,” Feiler explained. 

After the trees had fully dried, it was like having a fine chunk of marble to chisel into a masterpiece. Only instead of marble as the medium, it was foam, and instead of using a chisel, they used a serrated hand saw. They filed down any oversprayed or uneven textures with the saw to give the foam bark a more uniform appearance. Then, they swapped the saw for a wire bristle brush to rough up the foam and give it a woodsy, bark-like texture that would hold paint well. Plus, the more distressed the foam, the more high-def and dimensional the layers of acrylic paint would look on the finished piece.

To give the trees a hyper-realistic paint job, they used acrylic paint layered on in various shades of brown, adding dark washes of black to bring out the shadows in the tree’s folded roots. With a dry brush, they added a final touch of light paint to complete the look. 

What’s more, Feiler used the foam as a floral foam base to hold up faux cattails, grasses, and other botanical adornments to up the backdrop’s realism and “wow!” factor. To create a grassy scene, she sprayed a pile of spray foam onto plastic for easy removal, then let it dry. Once the foam dried, she removed it from the plastic and began covering it into faux moss, grass, and other woodlawn floral picks. Combined with the foam cypress trees, the effect was breathtaking, no boggy muck or swampy mire to be found.  

This year’s bayou ballroom at the John Hardin High School prom was a night to remember for all involved. The inherently magical celebration was elevated by the thoughtful, woodsy decor brought to life by Feiler, Punjack, and their student helpers– plus a dab of acrylic paint and a bunch of canned foam.   

Published by Spray Foam Magazine

SprayFoam / Spray Foam Insulation