We at Deseret Industries recently challenged some DIY friends to upcycle some items from Deseret Industries. To make things more interesting, we picked the items! Each of our participants was mailed a mystery box of items to transform. Here’s what Marg and Liz from Fancy Farmgirls did!

Deseret Industries sent us a box of mystery items, and we were ready and excited to turn these items into something new! When we go to DI, we don’t look for gems, but for potential that you can turn into gems!

When we opened the box, I’m not going to lie—our hearts sank a little. Liz and I kind of despise board games. Our box had two board games that we don’t have the patience to play, and two picture frames.

So what’s a girl to do when you’re sent board games and you happen to hate board games? Get creative and upcycle them into something cute for your home!

Scrabble and Backgammon are both classic games you can likely find at your local Deseret Industries, so if you’d like a quick and fun upcycle, you can try out what we did here.

First up: Scrabble! I looked through my stash of past DI purchases, and inspiration struck! I had a wooden board with some artwork that I wasn’t crazy about and a little watering can that I’d been wanting to transform.

A little hot glue and an old board, and …

I made something that I really love out of three pieces I wasn’t super excited about (the Scrabble game, the wooden board, and the watering can). You could add these little ledges from Scrabble to frames, chalkboards, walls—anything, really! And then you can change out the sayings as you wish.

Next up: The little vintage frames.

We love to snag ornate vintage frames! We loved that these were a matching set and liked how small and cute they were. Perfect for gallery walls or adding to small areas that need a little something.

Also perfect for a lost-and-found sock station for the laundry room!

We simply spray-painted the frames black, added scrapbook paper over the existing art, and hot-glued little clips to hang up those ever-elusive lone socks. The scrabble tiles came in handy again here for naming the station. We also painted a frame, added scrapbook paper, and glued on clips for changing out lost socks.

Next up was Backgammon.

We transformed the checkers into magnets. First, we spray-painted them blue to match our magnetic board. Then we cut circles out of scrapbook paper to glue into the inner circle of the checker. It turns out that a quarter is the exact size of that inner circle, so that worked great as a template. You could also put printed letters inside the checkers and use the magnets to spell things. After that, we hot-glued a magnet to back of each checker. 

Some creativity, a little paint, and—most assuredly—a hot glue gun can take your thrift store finds from the everyday to something unique to be used in a completely new way. Thrift on!

Marg and Liz are the Fancy Farmgirls—two twin sisters who love secondhand finds. Visit their website or Instagram to see more of their work.