Shannon Roycroft- Kindness Bench

On Monday we went to Walmart to get the pot and flower for our bench. We decided we were going to put it in the new wellness center. We didn't think that we should have it be outside because the paint would chip off. We also checked with maintenance and they didn't really seem to into it, which we understand. We outlined the pot with different designs on what we are going to paint on it. We got a pineapple flower that never dies and will always grow back. A pineapple is the sign of "Welcome" and we thought that went really nicely with the flow of our kindness bench. We are starting to paint the pot on Tuesday and get everything together to present on Wednesday!

This past week was full of last minute touches. We had to paint over all the colors so they would stay and not chip. There are so many different designs on our bench so that took us a while for sure. There were a few small spots in nooks and crannies of designs that we had to be super careful while painting over. When I was going over the whole bench in white I came across a few areas that had no white on it at all. We missed a few spots and had to paint it for the first time. It wasn’t a big deal because these areas were somewhat hidden and you wouldn’t be able to  see it unless you really looked. I painted over it and then moved onto finishing up painting the rest. We had to come up with a plan to put the bench somewhere at school, but we didn’t know at first if we wanted to put it outside or inside. When we talked to Kelly she gave us the idea to donate it to the new wellness room so we all agreed that would be the best thing. If we left the bench outside the paint might chip more a

On Friday we went to Lowe's in Tilton to get the spray. We started our day off with our usual routine, breakfast and a work out. After we were done we headed to Tilton. There was a lot of traffic on the way there so it slowed us down a bit. When we go to Lowe's we went right to the aisle that had the finish spray so we bought it and then was on our way! When we got back we made sure we finalized any finishing touches to make sure that before we sprayed down the bench we didn't forget anything. We sprayed it and waited for it to dry for about an hour ish and then sprayed it again! The bench is finally finished. Now we have to plan out where we are going to put it!

On Thursday we spent a lot of time making the finishing touches on our bench. We were able to complete the outlines on all the designs and words. We went over the bench in white again so it looked clean and nice. We went over everything in the color it was before so that it also looked really clean and nice! The bench came along really nicely! Even though it was for sure much more challenging than we thought it was so fun and completely worth all our time and effort. On Friday we will go get the spray to finish it off!

On Wednesday we started our leg design. We had to first clean off the bench and wipe it down with water and paper towels to make sure there wasn't anything like dust or pencil shavings that the paint could dry over. When we finished this we put a trash bag over the parts of the bench that we didn't want to get paint over and then started our design. We're not giving anything away so a little hint is that it is super messy. Our design took a long time to finish, but it was really fun. After we finished we went over the entire bench in like a 5th coat of white. We painted white in between letters, pictures, words, etc. It took a very long time to make sure we didn't get any white paint over anything we had already painted. We had to let the paint dry so we stopped there and are going to finish the other coat on Thursday, and then the bench will finally be done!

On Tuesday we started to outline our idea for the legs of the bench. We came up with a few different ones but none that really made us want to do them. We thought about polka dots, swirls, all different fun crazy designs. We didn't pick any of these. We decided to do something that doesn't require drawing it out first, its all freehand. After we came up with this we went over all the writing again in black or white so that it stuck out more. When we were finished with this we brainstormed ways to do what we wanted to on the legs so that we could start tomorrow!