Up-Cycled Kids Bench

When I found this great bench at our thrift store, DI, for $6 I was SO excited to grab it up and turn in into something my kids {and little front porch} would love! The bench was sturdy and very well put together, just not quite my style...


This suits us a little better!


I started by taking apart the whole bench so I could paint each piece the color I wanted (oh and I used spray paint for the whole project). I know I took pictures of painting each part but I can NOT find them on any of the 4 memory cards I have-who knows.

Sooooo, the one pic I have is when I painted the purple and turquoise trim white. I had already painted the body of the bench red, so to not get any white paint on it I covered the body in garbage bags by using push pins to hold the bags in place so only the trim was showing and spray painted away. It worked like a charm!


White trim with no white on the red bench! The outsides of the bench I painted using chalkboard spray paint. I was skeptical as this was my first time using chalkboard paint at all-much less the spray paint kind-but was SOOOO pleased with the outcome.


It came out smooth and black-just what I was going for! ha ha! I just used simple, cheap white chalk to outline the kiddos hands and write a little message. I messed up tracing Kylee's hand and the chalk wiped off just like a chalkboard, leaving no residue-I was impressed!


For the other side I copied an idea I had seen floating around blog land. I'm so sorry that I can't give credit for where I saw it, I didn't save it (didn't have pinterest back then :) ) and now I can't remember!


I think she is oh so lovely and the kids LOVE sitting on little chairs that are just their size so they think it's pretty cool there's something they can both sit on just for them!


Now...like I mentioned in my last post it's not quite finished in the sense that I feel it's missing something. I love the way it turned out, but it needs....what?!


I have a cricut so I was thinking I could maybe cut some vinyl lettering for it and this is what I came up with (using picnik editing, I'm kinda thinking it would look like this :) )...
WITH vinyl:


withOUT vinyl (as is now):


view from the front WITH vinyl:


view from front as is now:


So I don't know what do you think? Should I leave it as is? Should I adhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifd the vinyl? Just one of the sayings? Both? Something different altogether? A little pillow? Help! ha ha!

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I love my readers and I know you have great ideas so help a sista out! :) Have a sweetly Lovely day wherever you are!

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