Folks, I simply love a prank where a young person manipulates their parents' home, which has probably remained unchanged for decades, and sees how long it takes them to notice. First, there was the woman who tacked a Cheez-It to the wall in her dad's place, where it went unnoticed for four years.
Now, Kristen Vogler joins the hall of fame with her quarantine prank, in which she replaced one picture a day from her parents' picture wall with a crayon drawing of that picture. She nearly got through the entire wall, and then she went viral on Facebook. It's the best.
This is her parents' picture wall in its original state.
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Kristen writes on Facebook, "I started poorly recreating the framed photos on our wall with top notch art supplies, aka a box of crayons. Every day I replaced a new photo with a new and terrible crayon drawing.
"Sneaking these masterpieces up was not easy. I had to hide in the bathroom clutching the frames multiple times. It took [my parents] 11 days to notice that anything had changed. I find that concerning."
She started with the bottom righthand corner.
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"Day 1," she writes. "The first crayon drawing is placed, bets were made on how many photos and how long it would take them to notice." It's hard. When you walk by a wall like that all the time, you're just not really paying attention, you know? You register that it's there, then you move on.
Next, she moved clockwise.
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"Day 2. After FaceTiming with my grandparents (the subjects of my first crayon replica) for an hour near this wall, I decided to add another piece while my parents took a walk," Kristen writes. Listen, she's recreating these pictures flawlessly with crayons. I don't know how she expected her parents to notice. The crayon drawings are indistinguishable from the real pictures.
For Day 3, Kristen tried to choose the least noticeable picture.
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"Day 3. Up to three crayon artworks now and still not even a glance. That door on the left? It’s used multiple times a day," Kristen writes. It's not as if this is in some remote corner of their house. They walk by this wall dozens of times a day. At this point, Kristen is beside herself.
Recreating the smallest one on the bottom row was Kristen's Day 4 project.
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I mean, if they didn't notice on Day 3, I don't think this is going to help them out. However, Day 4 turned out to be a close call. Kristen writes, "Day 4. Thought I would get caught today. I had been posting on Twitter about my progress and my mom chose today to try to start a twitter account to talk to John Krasinski about Some Good News but luckily her account was locked."
Day 5 was when Kristen took it to the top row.
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She writes, "Day 5. At this point it was getting harder to pick photos I thought weren’t noticeable plus I felt like I smelled like crayons constantly." Crayons do have a very distinct smell. Still, I think she's doing a very good job of picking the ones her parents are least likely to notice.
Kristen got better and better at sneaking the drawings onto the wall.
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"Day 6," she writes. "After getting a ton of rain for days I was needing to get sneakier to be able to add these to the wall. I think today I convinced my mom to go for a run before it rained haha."
Kristen told Bored Panda that she'd been planning try out this prank for months, and it wasn't until quarantine that she suddenly had time to do it. However, I have to imagine that having everyone home all the time made it harder to accomplish. Still, Kristen persevered.
On Day 7, Kristen had to recreate two family Christmas cards.
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She writes, "Day 7. Today was a twofer with these classic Christmas photos. At this point, I was starting to think I should have guessed based on weeks and not days for how long it would take them to notice."
I don't know how she kept her cool and went about her daily life while knowing that those pictures were up there. I would have probably given it away after the second day.
Kristen was still going strong on Day 8.
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"Day 8. I legit did not think I would get this far, but here we are," she writes. At this point, there are — count 'em — four pictures left that she hasn't replaced with a crayon drawing.
Kristen replaced the portrait in the top right corner on Day 9.
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Kristen writes, "Day 9. Only three left to go before my work is complete. I should probably take a moment to apologize to my art teachers. You tried really hard to teach me to draw people, and this is what I’ve done."
On Day 10, Kristen had no choice but to start in on the portraits on the left side.
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"Day 10. Happy Easter. My mom was nice enough to hide Easter eggs for me, in return I did this to the photo of her first born," she writes. At this point, there are only two photos left!
Kristen almost got caught putting this portrait up on Day 11.
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She writes," Day 11. I almost got caught hanging this one up. Had to hide in the bathroom but they still didn’t notice." Later that day, though, her mom finally, confusedly looked at the wall.
Kristen captured the moment on video.
It's truly a joy to watch her parents figure it out. They were absolutely stunned. It boggled their mind that she'd been doing this for so long and that they didn't realize a thing. "Please tell me you just did that," her mom says at one point. Still, Kristen wasn't quite done.
Kristen had come so close to replacing them all. Plus, she needed closure.
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Not to mention, her sister Kerri felt left out, since she was the only one left. So Kristen dutifully completed the set, even after her parents discovered what she'd done. "Day 12," she writes. "I needed closure, Kerri wanted to be included."
This is a prank that belongs in the history books. I hope a museum curates a collection of Kristen's drawings. This is truly a work of art, from beginning to end. I hope Kristen is aware of how much joy she's brought to people's lives with this incredible work she's done. Brava.
This article was originally published four years ago. It has since been updated.
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