These days, people are upcycling like crazy. You can pretty much take any piece of trash and turn it into your next masterpiece. Upcycling was definitely a big trend in 2017, and we anticipate that it will be more prevalent throughout 2018 and beyond. Environmental preservation is a huge social movement, and as long as people are reducing, reusing, and recycling, art is a great venue to show your support for the cause.

Before you have your mattress ready for the garbage man to pick up, stop and think of what it means to you. It could be that you are about to waste the most artistic piece in your home. There’s a lot of compartments to a mattress, but if you’re not thinking about how valuable your mattress really is you could be wasting your talent.

The parts of a mattress seem to be complex, but in fact, they are amazingly simple to use. Before diving in and taking this mattress apart, brainstorm about the way you can use it. To come up with a contemporary sculpture, your strategy should be written down so you will know for yourself exactly what it is that you’re inventing. The springs are a great place to start. Make sure to set aside 15 for the parts that you have to do later. Have a hammer and wrench handy in case you need them, the sculpture itself will takes some hard work but it will be a lot of fun to make.

Twist and connect each spring piece to form a circle. Then as you think about what to do with the cotton, you are layering the cotton onto the springs and wrapping it around them like a ribbon. It may be easier to rub the cotton back and forth in your hands as if you’re trying to cause friction. This will help the cotton mimic the ribbon. Cut the wood that was in the mattress in half. After you’re finished with all of that, take the magnets and glue some to the wood and the rest to the sculpture. Make sure the wood is surrounding as much of the springs as possible.

After that is complete, you take a saw and go down the front of the sculpture to form a u-shape on one side of the sculpture. It should look like it has a dip in the front. Take those pieces of wood that were cut and glue them to the back of the sculpture toward the highest part of it. Place cotton in the middle of the sculpture but hold it in place with glue.

Take the springs that you did not use and overlap them. You want them to look like you’re weaving a basket. Stuff the holes with memory foam as needed for aesthetic purposes – the best memory foam mattress toppers are extremely pliable and will fit anywhere you need to fill the void. You want to find memory foam that is designed to hold up to the test of time, as many lower-quality memory foams will lose their resilience. This, over time, would lead to drooping and won’t give your structure the support that it needs.

Before adding the springs to the bottom of your sculpture, measure the circumference of it. You want the bottom piece to fit in the bottom like a lid. After you finished working on your art, you realized that you made a steel bongo. Be sure to have enough cotton around the top to make sure you don’t hurt your hands. You never thought you would be able to come up with something like this. Your sleep has helped you become an artist.