The Best Seat in the House

My favorite part about giving a gift is seeing the surprise/excitement on the other person's face.  This gift got me just that exact reaction.  And I love that!

This past year the family decided we would have a nothing-new Christmas.  Not including the gifts for all the kids, any presents we gave had to be recycled, handmade, previously used or vintage.  Every year we each draw a name of another family member and have a $50 budget.  I drew my sister-in-law Laura's name.  She wanted anything for the house, specifically a bench for the entry way or front porch if I could find one.  She also said she would like to have something with their last name on it, if possible.

Challenge accepted.

I came across this cute little storage bench at an antique mall and it was quite a steal at $20.  All it needed was a little personalization and it would be exactly what she was looking for.

Luckily, I just learned how to do a Citrasolv transfer and had the perfect solution...

I printed their last name in a variety of different fonts on my handy dandy laser printer (in reverse of course) and transferred them onto the thick comfy cushion I made.  These transfers took under an hour!  How can you beat that???

Plus, I already had a piece of 4" foam that was the perfect size for this bench!  The whole thing ended up costing less than $30!  The only problem is now I am a little jealous...secretly I thought about keeping it and coming up with a different gift.  But, after seeing how much she liked it...I was glad I didn't.