Flexible Seating - Crate Cushions

I am so proud of myself right now. I'm jumping in the deep end of the Flexible Seating arena this year and have already blogged about some ideas I had HERE.  I wanted to create some type of cushion for these crates I bought at Walmart. The crates are going to hold student work and Friday Folder materials and to help repurpose them into stools as well, I had to get creative.

I looked around at a few people's suggestions on how to create cushions, like this one from Hands on Learning. But their cushions fit down into the crates. I couldn't do that because I am using hanging folders and the cushion might crush those pesky little white handles like crazy.

I needed something to go on top. Something that would also be sturdy for some of my larger Fourth Graders. So I measured the width and length of the outside lip of the crate.

It was 14" x 16.5".

Then I went to Home Depot and bought a 4x2' piece of particle board that was only like $4. I had them cut the two pieces I would need from that for my project. I had them cut it slightly larger to overlap the crate at 15" x 18".

When I got home I looked at the sharp edges of the boards and my Teacher Brain went to, "Uh-Oh. Someone's going to get hurt." I took a small bucket and traced rounded edges on each of the corners.

I broke out the jigsaw tool that has been gathering dust in the far reaches of my garage and cut those edges down. It was awesome.

 

Then I some 1' poly foam I bought at Jo-Ann's (hint** Look at the remnants first, they might just be perfect for you.) and took out the Staple Gun to secure the corners first.



 

 Then I worked my way around the edge of the foam securing it to the board.

 

 I flipped it over and had a cushion ready to for the next step.

 

 

 I bought some broadcloth at Jo-Ann's as well. I asked the lady what type of fabric would be good to use in a classroom. This is what she suggested. I bought it purposely a little longer so I would have some room to work with. I had them cut them at 24" lengths. I chose a blue and green for our school colors. Just easy to remember.

Once again I just started stapling around. This time I started on the longer sides, like present wrapping.

 

 

 This is what it looked like when I finished stapling everything.

 

 

 My Teacher Brain came back and said, "That fabric in the middle is not going to work. If it's right on top of the crate, the fabric will rip and the whole thing will fall apart." Flashbacks to my chair pocket fiasco.
 So, I needed to remove that middle section of fabric which required a whole lot more stapling.

 

Here's what it looked like when I flipped it over. Great, right????

 





 

 

Now, here is the finished product on top of the stools. LOVE!