Little Stool Makeover

I have had this stool forEVER...or at least since 3rd grade. We went on a field trip to Sutter's Fort here in Sacramento and we each made a stool and a cornhusk doll and I honestly don't remember what else. I've always thought the stool was kinda ugly because I like the stools with a V, or I guess it's more like an A, cut out on the bottom of both sides. Know what I mean? But the purpose of these stools was to be able to sit on it AND turn them upside down and carry our goodies in, so they kind of had to be made like this.

I don't even remember what the 'A' on the side stands for. I don't know if we all burned our first initial on the side or what?

And for some reason, I got the urge sometime in elementary school to put a footprint stamp in the corner.

It was time to either do something with this stool or get rid of it, and considering I have held on for this long, I figured I might as well give it a shot.  I decided to do a simple stain...

But I did not like the look of this at all. I didn't want to paint the whole thing either, so I compromised and left the top stained. I did 4 coats of white, purposely not letting them dry inbetween coats. Why, you ask? I wanted to be able to chip away at the paint and the edges and I knew it would be easier to do if the paint was not completely cured. I could have just sanded the edges, but that would have made it look too smooth. So while the paint was still slightly tacky, I took the edge of a flathead screwdriver (is that what they're called?) and rubbed the edges of the stool.  I also scraped away at random parts of the stool to give it an overall old look.

I still didn't like the color of the stain, so I rubbed the top with watered down black craft paint. Here is the final product.

But I think I might just use it as a magazine holder instead!

If you are a Country Living subscriber you know those are very old magazines, but it's SO hard finding time to flip through them when you have a toddler running around! =)

I'm linking up to this party