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.