I've been in a frenzy of making benches. I came across a nice pattern for traditional five-board benches and immediately made four of them, out of salvaged lumber, one of which I gave to a friend for his garden.
Benches, I discovered made nice gifts, and as my sweetie had a birthday coming up (yesterday) I set about to make a pair of "higher-end" five-board benches with some Arts and Crafts influence.
And they came out pretty nice
I also wanted to decorate them. Using my soldering iron...
I burned this scene of blackbirds on a limb into the first.
Into the second one I routed a traditional Roycroft design, in this case, Dard Hunter's beautiful
geometric roses.
The Dremel Trio (a new purchase) really expedited the process.
Side-by-side the slight variations in construction are apparent.
I colored the roses with watered down acrylic paint,
and followed that with six coats of spar-varnish...
which locked in the color and weatherproofed the benches.
The result was both pretty to look at...
and well received by the birthday girl.
