UPDATE: After you read this, check out our final project here!
If you’ve been following us for awhile, you know that we’re crazy about making weird things into new, slightly-less-weird things. We’ve turned bowls into planters, dressers into TV stands, pantries into open shelving, scrapbook paper into elegant art… even silverware into a sunburst mirror.
Another thing we’re crazy for? COMPETITIONS. So a competition about transforming weird thrift-store junk, organized by one of our favorite bloggers, the hilarious Lindsey at Better After? It figuratively literally cannot get any better than that.
Just imagine our joy to hear that we (as a pair, of course) were one of 12 chosen to be participants in the inaugural Mystery Thrift Off!
(via Better After)
The rules are simple – Lindsey went shopping at Goodwill and shipped each participant an item that she found. (Yes, that means that we’re all working with something different!) We then have a little while to transform it before sending her pictures of our desperate attempts not embarrass ourselves brilliant triumphs.
We could hardly wait to see what we’d get. Would it be terrible? Broken? SILVERWARE? (Oh, anything but silverware.)
Sage checked her mail obsessively every day, and there was no mistaking when it finally arrived.
She barely contained herself enough to snap a photo before tearing it open to discover the mystery lurking within. By now I’m sure you’re all equally impatient, so without further ado it’s our great pleasure to introduce you all to our mystery thrift-off item: It’s a plastic cactus, of course!
What you’re looking at is a hollow plastic cactus, standing a bit wonky on a heavy-ish plastic base.
It’s about 16″ tall, base included. Or, as we like to measure things, it’s about 1.5 bottles of wine.
The plastic is uniformly bright green (we think) but it is coated by some sort of glue-and-sawdust situation, which we understand is meant to simulate cactus spines. We have no idea if we can get that all off somehow, or what condition the plastic is in underneath!
Of course, as soon as we got our item, we immediately began brainstorming about our amazing transformation.
We went right to the good and reliable option of encasing it completely in cement. A good-ol’ block of cement is a very useful item! It could be a plant stand, a display stand, a book-end, or a very large paperweight. But we’re concerned that Lindsay might think this isn’t quite in the spirit of the challenge. Perhaps some element of the original item should still be visible in our final transformation?
If so, that means that our idea of “burying it in one of our yards for the next homeowners to find and wonder about” is out, too. Bummer.
Moving on to more practical ideas, inspired by our “scale” photo, we realize that the cactus looks kind of like a tipsy person waving “hello.” So we could always pursue a something in the “drunk cowboy” genre.
Welcome to our highly sophisticated brainstorming process.
It could also be a hookah, if we added piping coming out of each of those arms. However, that wouldn’t be the most practical use for either of us.
OR, it could form the base of a “quirky” picture stand. We could display our favorite photos, or use it as signage in our southwestern themed hotel (which we would have to open just to put the cactus in).
Unfortunately that’s as far as we’ve come….
So now the question, if YOU were shipped a sawdust-covered plastic cactus to transform, what would you do with it?
UPDATE: Check out our final transformation here! We took home the grand prize, and we’re so excited!
(Sharing at Tip Me Tuesday, A Bowl Full of Lemons, All Things Thursday, Think and Make Thursday, Weekend Retreat Link Party, Link Party Palooza, DIY Showoff, and Two Uses Tuesday.)
I left this under “Other” but I’ll bet it disappeared. This cactus is clearly cat furniture. It’s a scratching post already; just needs its three sitting/sleeping platforms nailed in!
Love it! We just need some smaller cats — ours would be like Godzilla to this cactus 🙂
For some reason, my immediate thought was spray painting it hot pink (after getting all the sawdusty stuff off). But I have no idea why. I just think it wants to be hot pink. Good luck!
Hot pink would certainly be a STATEMENT! I do like the spray painting idea – changing the expected green/prickly look into something more modern and streamlined. Because the shape is actually pretty cool! Thanks!
I like how you measure stuff and I LOLed hard with the cowboy pic. 🙂
God this thing is ugly.
Thanks so much! We live to entertain! 🙂
Ohhhhh my gosh, I am laughing so hard! So many directions this cactus could go! You girls are going to kill it! (figuratively, not literally. I’m the only person who can literally kill a cactus). I CANNOT wait to see what you come up with!!
Thanks Lindsey! You picked an awesome item for us. Don’t worry, I’ve literally killed a cactus before too — but killing a *plastic* cactus would be super impressive! 🙂
I agree with Leslie, I see a cat scratch post in the making!
Thanks Erin! My cats certainly do like to make the decor all about them!
Lol. That is one unique cactus. While it would look ridiculously great as a planted lawn ornament, I do enjoy the idea of the drunken cowboy. Good luck. You already have some good ideas, I am sure you will think of something grand.
A lawn ornament, I like that! It will have us dreaming of “dry heat” while we swelter in the humid Boston summer!
I left the idea under “other” but I think making it into a lamp (for outside) would be awesome. You’d have to do very little (drill holes) and add the wooden lamp base (think nightlight) then simply add some desert decor to it!!! Good luck!!!!
Thanks Lora! We hadn’t thought of an outdoor light, that would be pretty cool!
SO? What did you do with it??
Glad to hear we have you on the edge of your seat! 🙂 We promise to update you when we can! All 12 finished projects will be revealed first on Lindsey’s blog during the week of June 8th (and we’ll post a link then), and then shortly after we’ll follow up with all the process details!