Making Seats for Your Trek Bucket

Are you ready for the June 20th activity?  Here are some more detailed instructions on what you need to bring and how it will be done.  If you can't come you can make your seat at home. 

Items needed:

1 - 5 or 6 gallon bucket - I recommend a 6 gallon bucket for adults, smaller youth might be okay with a 5 gallon bucket.
1 - Gamma lid
1 - cut 10.5 inch diameter circle from foam board (can be purchased at the dollar store) Cardboard can work but it is generally not strong enough in relation to the Velcro. When pulling it away it tends to break and bend.
1 - approx. 14x14 inch square of fabric for the top of the seat. Depending on how much batting you want inside the seat depends on how big of a fabric piece you may want. We did not use a lot of batting when we made our seats. So if you are planning on more padding, use a larger piece of fabric.
Batting to pad seat with
12 inches of sticky back Velcro (comes with an adhesive on the outside of the Velcro)
hot glue gun - you could also use duct tape but we did not try this method. 
scissors
sandpaper - to sand sides of circle to fit, 10.5 inches is slightly bigger than needed.
exacto knife (bring one if you have one, they work best for cutting out the circle from the foam board.)

Start by cutting out the 10.5 inch circle.  Cut out the desired amount of batting to fill your seat.  Use the glue gun to adhere the fabric around and over the batting and foam board circle.  Trim any unneeded fabric.  Adhere pieces of sticky back Velcro where you want it to adhere to the top of the Gamma lid.   The Velcro needs to adhere to the foam board, not fabric, or it will pull away. So please trim the extra fabric from the middle of the back of the seat. Make sure your top and bottom pieces match up. We originally adhered in 4 places but found that 2 was enough. You can decide what works best for you. Removing the lid with 4 was more difficult but it is more secure.  You should be able to remove the seat and open your gamma lid when you need something from inside your bucket.

Why 17 pounds?

Please aim for keeping the weight of your items (minus the weight of the bucket) to 17 pounds.  The members of the handcarts were limiting to only 17 pounds for personal items including their clothing and bedding.  This experience is an opportunity for us to live on less like they did.