Gardening Bucket

My awesome mother-in-law, Vienna, had a birthday last week, and I wanted to share what I made for her. I was originally going to make this for her for mothers day,
but being the procrastinator that I am, it didn't get done in time!
So it ended up being the perfect birthday gift! Vienna loves to garden,
so when I found this idea over at Ladybird Ln, I knew I had to make it for her.
Here's how mine turned out

Isn't it great?? Carlee from Ladybird Ln put burlap around hers, and then made an adorable gardening belt to go around it. My sewing machine is broken, so I couldn't do the belt, and I thought it would add a fun touch to put the grand kids hand prints on the outside. I'm not going to do a tutorial since Carlee already has an amazing one, but I will give you some tips

First off, you don't have to buy your 5 gallon bucket. My husband works at a grocery store, and I had him ask the bakery if they would give us one, and they were fine with it. These buckets have pros and cons. They're free, but the reason I spray painted mine was because it had a huge image on the side reminding you that kids can fall into the bucket and drown.

Can you see it? This was after two coats of white paint!!
That's why I decided to paint it the blue color.
Another con is that it still had a huge label on it (ours was for butter-cream frosting!),
but I used my handy dandy 'Sticky Out' that I used for this post, and it took it off, no problem! Carlee used a Gamma lid for her bucket, which would have been awesome if I could have found one in time, but I couldn't. So I just used the original lid, and it worked fine.

Here are a couple pics of how I put the cushion together

Do you see my favorite new tool I just bought for myself?!!
Can't believe I've never owned one, but I love it! :)

Then I had my husband screw the seat to the lid.

I traced my kids hands onto fabric, mod podged them to the bucket with
a couple extra coats on top, and painted on the wording.
After it all dried, I covered it with a couple coats of clear sealant.

It didn't turn out quite like I'd predicted, but it's fun none the less.
At least it shows I put effort into making something for her. What do you think?

Thanks for reading!!

Juli

Linking to these fabulous parties!