Repurpose Cabinet to Sandbox

Every project I do always seems to have a story of how it started. When I started this blog, I assumed I would run out of crafts to share quite quickly. However, I didn't realize how many projects and recipes I do normally, until I was over 200 posts with no end in sight.

The private school my mom teaches at is adding on a new wing and they had a ceremony to celebrate. They dumped a large load of sand to signify the construction and the kids were able to put on some Home Depot aprons and be a part of the "ground breaking." My mom immediately noticed the extra sand was left behind, and she started hauling it home in buckets for me. God bless her! Ha! Free sand=need to build a sandbox. Then I started thinking about how large I wanted the sandbox to be and what materials I might have lying around to transform or repurpose. I looked in our barn and found and over sized kitchen cabinet from our remodel. Problem solved.

This is the old kitchen cabinet...

The cabinet was not in the best of shape after being ripped out of our kitchen. I debated sanding it...then became lazy.

I primed it with white primer which took several coats. Then I placed a plate as my template to draw a circle. The next picture is hard to see...but I drew on the outline of a life preserver.

Taping for painting, was not exactly the most fun part of this project. (smile) I tore small pieces of tape to fit the curve of the circle, and then went back the opposite direction from the opposing side until the entire ring was taped.

I chose bright blue for the top, and used spray paint to speed the job up. When I removed the tape, I painted the red portions on the life preserver with a small paint brush. I then began the fun task of taping the sides to create a striped pattern. 

When I removed all the tape, and wrapped some twine around the top, this is what my nautical sandbox looked like. I love the lid because it means it will keep cats from thinking it is a litter box. (Ugh! Yuck!)

The minute it was dry enough to play with, my son brought his construction men out, and put them to work.

This is my oldest enjoying his new treasure of a sandbox. It was a huge hit!

I feel like I read a blog each week where individuals with thousands of followers stop blogging, because it is sucking them dry, and causing them to neglect their children and family. It makes me so sad because I know in their heart they truly love it. However, I find it is a balance to do both. I don't post on a regular schedule, I don't come up with posts just so I can blog, and I never know what I will come up with next. I really just enjoy it. I try to stay involved with my kids while I am crafting so they never think they are in second place. Today I let my kids paint their clubhouse with water while I painted the sandbox. They painted and giggled and painted and giggled. I had to stop just to take pictures of them having so much fun!

 Hope you all are having a wonderful week!!!