Never need a reason...Step in time - Step Stools

Decorating Children's Step Stools

 I have several grandchildren of the short variety who needed step stools.  It seemed like a fun birthday present.  Not being handy with wood working and terrified of all cutting power tools, I took myself to Michaels to see if they had ready-made step stools.  Fortunately they had just the right size plain wooden stools screaming to be painted, decorated, and fancied up.  Interestingly, they all had warning stickers "for decorative purposes only".  My intentions were to decorate them and then actually use them - so I considered myself warned.

Feeling a bit lazy, I wandered up and down a few isles looking at wooden letters, shapes, cut-outs of animals, toys, stencils looking for ideas.  There were some really snazzy primary colored wooden letters and also some letter stickers. I purchased the letters and some wooden cut-outs.

First step was to lightly sand the rough patches, then paint each stool.  The wood was unfinished so it needed primer. Turned out the primer was visiting neighbors or getting it's hair done or something - couldn't find it anywhere.  I choose to use additional coats of paint rather than going out to get primer.  One stool was painted brown and the other white.

After painting I used glue to attach the cut-outs and letters.  One the white stool I taped off stripes with masking tape and then used a dauber to make polka dots on the top  On the other stool, I modge-podged stickers to add a little traction to the top and made polka dots around the edge.

Each stool received a couple of coats of poly sealer and voila!

Here's the other one with an eager little foot getting ready to hop on.  I didn't get a picture of the top but it's decorated with star stickers in a swirl pattern.