Guest Blogger - Kristi Parker Van Doren and Her Re-purposed Bench Project

The following post was written and photographed by Kristi.

I hope you enjoy learning how she created this one of a kind bench. Thank you for sharing Kristi!

Carmi

How many of you like to re-purpose items?  Some friends of mine had this cute little bench for sale at a garage sale.  I thought to myself, "self, you can do something with that bench".  So I bought it!  Yes, the seat lifts for storage.  I decided I wanted to use a mosaic look of sorts, add lots of texture and finish it off with RESIN! So lets get this party started!  

I used my Golden Paints (got a GREAT deal on a garage sale of a then local artist, Pam Carriker!) to lay down some color.  Pam loves the teal/ochre combo so there were a lot of those colors along with white so I went with it!

So I blended and painted and blended and painted and then did it some more. I finally got the look I wanted and so I continued until the entire bench was covered. I colored a bunch of dominoes with Alcohol Inks by Dreamweaver Stencils. Yes, they have wonderful, rich Alcohol Inks!  I edged them with Gold Krylon Pens and made the "frame" for the mosaics on the bench top.

I found these stones/shells at Michael's so decided to use them.  I have not ever done mosaic so I just winged it!  I love just making it up as I go, part of the freedom of art!  I used Designer Dries Clear Glue to attach everything to the bench.  It is the best over all glue I have ever used.  I like some others for different projects, but the Designer Dries Clear is my "GO TO" glue!  

I did some glitter work between the bits of shell and let it all dry.  While I was waiting, I used my Connie Crystal Sheets in white to start trimming the bench on top.  

I added a lot of texture to the front of the bench with Dreamweaver Stencils and several colors of Stencil Paste.  I added bits of the shell as well to the paste while it was still wet.

I also used ink to stencil on the pattern to add more depth.

I finally added the RESIN!  The dominoes made a great barrier for the resin and it just went on perfect.

I finished by brushing a bit of resin over the dominoes to seal them.

This is my final result...

I hope you enjoyed.  

Sources:

Resin: ETI Enviro-Tex Lite

Stencils/Paste/Alcohol Inks : Dreamweaver Stencils

Crystal Sheets: Connie Crystal

Paint : Golden

Glitter/Glue: Art Glitter

Keep Creating

Kristi

Kristi Parker Van Doren

Designer/Writer/Artist/Teacher

417 823 0585 (h)

417 773 2353 (c)

Sales Rep: WorldWin Papers.

DT Lead/Social Media:

Art Glitter/Connie Crystal/Holly Berry House Originals