Dress Up Clothes... Where to Put Them All?

Elli is slowly accumulating donated dress up clothes and I have been stuffing them in a plastic drawer. I have been looking for a bench with a lid at all the garage sales. Last Saturday I went with my friend Molly to a community garage sale (basically where multiple households set stuff out in their driveway and you just putt putt around the neighborhood instead of chasing single sales all over the valley.) We hit the jackpot that day. It was really fun finding great deals all over the place and trying to find a way to stack our treasures in the back of Newell's truck. At one point we were trying to use these old straps that Newell gets working in seconds, and it took us half an hour to figure out the old metal gears. I mentioned we looked like the Beverly Hillbillies at the end of the day with all our furniture over-flowing.

I saw this bench and when the owner shrugged and said I could have it for $5 I knew I had found the one I had been looking for. They had let their (hopefully) daughters use cheap craft paint and glob on layer after layer of letters and hand prints and other indistinguishable markings. We stood there for awhile trying to figure out what the writing on the front said. I understand the concept of encouraging creativity, but I must be a bad parent because seeing this thing in my daughter's room every day would literally be painful for me.
So I carefully washed off what looked like pizza sauce and other unmentionables, and sanded it down numerous times until the wood grain started to resurface. Then I painted it all black and let it sit in the garage for a few days. I don't like to sound like a cheesy artist, but I would stand there for a few minutes at a time, walk around it, and let it speak to me. I tried to imagine what the structure wanted. I decided to decoupage a portion of it and then I went to Hobby Lobby with my friend Kris. As I was browsing the scrapbook paper section I saw a large package of gems in swirling patterns for $5.99. I grabbed those, some paper, and some Modge Podge (Dumb name, I know. Seriously, who thought of that? But it's a life saver for any crafter...).

So the bench is done, complete with a red crystal knob on top. Elli just sits on it all the time, singing and playing with her toys. I think the bench still needs something, but I will wait for it to tell me what it is...

Go out and try this! Happy Decoupaging...