Upcycling is all the rage. Pinterest -- a fairly recent website that acts as a scrapbook or bulletin board -- contains a ton of ideas, pictures, and links on how an old tire can be upcycled into a coffee table, or a how a ladder can be turned into a bookshelf, for example.





Here are some of the smartest, most inventive finds among the slew of upcycling projects:





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Source: A Little Learning for Two

A crib turned into a kid's art desk.





Simple, smart, elegant, brilliant: turn your kid's old crib into a desk. Just take out one side of the crib. Bonus: turn the base into a blackboard.





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Source: Aquahobby

A TV turned into a fish tank.





Keep outdated electronics off of the landfill. Here's one idea: transform your huge, old, bulky TV set into a dazzling, colorful aquarium. It's 'Nemo in 3D -- literally.





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Source: Pianissimo

A piano turned into a bookshelf.





A grand piano can take up so much space. And once it's nonfunctional, it's hard to get rid of it -- you'll have to take it apart, carry it through the door, try to find someone to take it off of your hands. This DIY project did away with all that by turning the piano into a bookcase -- clever, and quite practical too.





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