September the 18th 2008, a day I wish I could just erase off of the calendar. The day my Little Big Sister left this earth for a more Heavenly life. Every year since then September has just sucked! Just no other way to put it. Years have passed yet I still struggle just as hard sometimes as it was yesterday. I sure do miss her! I still have my other two big sisters which I am too grateful for, but now there is an empty hole, and has been. Most every year around this time I try to find me a project to work on in honor of my sis Donna. I haven’t done this every single year but over the years I’ve kept my mind occupied by doing what I do, creating something! This is my latest project “In Memory Of Donna Butterfly Bench”. I decided this would be something special for momma as the frame of this old bench used to be Donnas. It sort of had an “extreme makeover”…..

Donna’s Butterfly Bench

Several weeks after Donna died I was in her yard picking up some things, cleaning etc and noticed a bench in one of her flower beds outside. It had some years on it even back then so I just decided to take it on home with me. I placed it out in the front yard where it’s been untouched up until about two years ago when I sat in it and broke it. Since then it’s just been barely standing on it’s own, kind of like how I feel sometimes…Anyhow about two months ago I had a vision of what I could do with this old bench. I took it apart, threw out the old rotten wood, gave the frame a good cleaning and a coat or two of paint, and then found me several pieces of beautiful Poplar wood. This would be the perfect project for our new CNC Router set up we installed a few months ago. So as September started, so did I. It started on the drawing board with some modifications to an existing digital butterfly file I had on hand. From there over to the CNC. After that, staining, clear coating, gold vinyl lettering to install and then more clear coat and finally topped off with some stainless steel bolts and a pair of solar powered LED lighted tip antennas. O yea, a lazer engraved photo we also did on our laser engraver. Whew!

I feel like this is one of my best creations to date. Mom said it was definitely a “work of art”.

I am also accepting orders on a case by case basis for these type “Custom Benches” Any theme is possible. Feel free to contact me and drop me some comments on what you think about “Donna’s Bench”

Love you SIS!