When our Customer Service team took part in the Threadless "Design Your Office" competition, we were psyched. Beyond psyched. We spend a lot of time in this here office and couldn't wait to sass it up a bit.

Our design theme: Crafty Lodge. We hammered up some wood paneling. We tricked Charlie into building us a fireplace. We ordered a faux bear skin rug. But something was missing. What's a lodge without dead animals? Not willing to go out and shoot some animals, we decided the next best thing was stuffed animals. Not the taxidermy kind. The cute kind. We went to work on our stuffed animal mounted trophies. We have to say- they really tie the room together.

We presented our finished design to rave reviews and ended up taking home the title of "Best Office Design", something we're super proud of. Since then, we've received quite a few compliments and questions about our stuffed animal head trophies, so we decided to write up a little tutorial (see below the pic for instructions)



Supplies
Large Stuffed Animal
Unfinished Wood Plaque- available at most craft stores
Scissors
Staple Gun
Staples
Paint
Paintbrush
Optional: Needle & Thread

Tips on How to Find an Animal
Haven't been lucky enough to win a carnival game and wonder what in the world you're going to do with this over-sized stuffed animal? Don't fret. Check out your local resale or thrift store. They should have a large selection of stuffed animals looking for a good home (or in our case, a home where they'll be decapitated). Look for an animal that isn't straight up and down. 4 legged animals and animals that rest on their belly work best (ponies, unicorns, cows, pigs, sheep, etc). Teddy bears and other sit-down plushies don't really work because of where the neck hole is. Make sure to think about the scale of the head and how it will fit on the plaque.

Instructions
Clean your plaque of any dust and dirt and paint your desired color. Allow to dry overnight. Once your plague is painted and dry, you can start working on mounting the head.

Decapitate your stuffed animal. Don't sever too close to the head, otherwise you won't have enough material to work with. Make a snippet lower on the neck near the shoulders and cut all the way around, severing the head from the rest of the body.

Discard the remains or use your twisted imagination to make some use of it (headless pony dog toy, anyone?)

Remove about half of the stuffing from the neck canal.

On your plaque, mark the position of where you'd like the head to be.

Prepare the head for mounting. Fold the neck flaps into the neck opening. You can use the needle and thread if you want to bind the flaps loosely together.

Using your staple gun, begin to staple the neck opening to the plaque, keeping your folds on the inside of the stuffed animal. You might want to staple once at the top, bottom, and sides before you continue all the way around the head to ensure placement. Use just enough staples to keep the head secure. Make sure to staple as close to the base of the neck as possible. The fur from the stuffed animal will hide the staples, giving you a good clean base.

Hang and enjoy! To add authenticity, don your most mountain man flannel shirt and beard (ladies, don't be scared of a little facial hair). Rock away in your rocking chair while stroking your beard, all while admiring your impressive trophy and even more impressive crafting skills .