Keyboard to Desktop Sand Garden

Quarantine. Winter blues. Endless zoom calls. There were a million reasons to add a zen garden to my work-from-home desk, so after a particularly frustrating day I finally decided to pull the trigger. Unfortunately my wallet had other priorities, so I committed to make a desktop zen garden myself. Couldn't be too hard, right?

Surprisingly, the trickiest part about making a desktop meditative retreat was finding the perfect container. A simple wooden box? Looks nice, but too boring-- everyone and their mother has one like that. A floating wooden box? Now that would be something, but I don't really understand how magnets work. iPhone box? Too branded. Altoids tin? Too small. Mug? No, I need all of my mugs. And that's when I realized the answer was staring right at me-- a keyboard. A unique shape, sleek, slim, the perfect size, and best of all it actually belongs on a desk!

Spoiler alert: it turned out amazing, and by following along with my instructable you too can have the coolest, most relaxing desktop out of any of your coworkers. Let's get started.

Here's the problem: I, perhaps like many of you, don't have a spare keyboard.

That seemed like a real end-of-the-road type moment for me, until I remembered the heavenly oasis that is the public works department. Every town, city, village, and suburb should have one, and nestled within the confines of the public works department is a container exclusively for recycled electronics.

So if you're not afraid to roll up your sleeves and dumpster dive (I can't imagine many of you would be), then you too can go help the environment with your very own tiny liberation mission. Remember, reusing is always better than recycling, so this project is really a win-win-win if you're able to save one keyboard from the bin.

I was able to find a few keyboards at my public works department, so I just picked my favorite and only attracted a few weird looks in the process.

Once you have a keyboard you're ready to render useless (for its intended purpose, that is), take it to a work bench/table and grab your favorite screwdriver.

A keyboard is a relatively simple machine, so it doesn't take long to disassemble it. The keys pop off easily with a flathead, and then there should only be a few screws on the back that join the two halves.

Once you have every key popped off, unscrew the two halves, and you should be left with just the shell and a couple of inner electronics pieces.

Easy peasy, right?

Now it's time to make the keyboard better suited to our needs. Most keyboards have little plastic protrusions that the individual keys connect to-- we don't want those, because they would get in the way of the sand.

After a quick brainstorm session, I realized that I don't have to get the protrusions out in the cleanest way, because the sand would be covering up any outlier fragments of plastics. Which means... jigsaw.

So for this step, carefully cut out any part of the keyboard you'd like to put sand in. It's pretty straightforward to cut with a jigsaw, but if you don't have access to a jigsaw I'd recommend some sort of Stanley knife.

*Remember: there are two halves of the keyboard shell, and we're only cutting out the front piece. The back piece stays completely untouched, because we need to contain the sand once we put it in!*

This step is completely optional, and it depends on whether you'd like to keep the full aesthetic of the keyboard (read: the color and branding) or if the frame/shape is good enough for you.

In my opinion, a pure matte black is the cleanest, nicest, and most meditative option for a zen garden, so I applied a couple of coats of spray paint.

Reminder for spray painting: short, light bursts from about a foot away, and continue to apply coats until you're happy with it.

Perhaps the easiest step of this entire instructable: reassembly.

For this step, all you have to do is reattach the two halves with the screws you took off earlier. It's starting to come together... quite literally, eh?*

*This will be my last use of word play, I promise.

Believe it or not, there are a few different ways to fill up your desktop zen garden, all of which are worthy in their own right.

The first is to buy the finest sand you can, as there is a direct correlation between ease of raking and finer sand. Simply put, if you want nice, clean lines when you rake, buy the finest sand you can. I hear pet stores are good places to buy fine sand, as a lot of reptiles (supposedly) enjoy a bed of fine sand.

The second option is to buy the prettiest sand you can, if you prefer your zen garden be more decorative than meditative. Amazon (as well as most craft stores) sells really beautiful colored sand, and if you're the type of person to want a pastel sand garden, definitely go for this option.

The third option is to get the most sentimental and authentic sand you can. This is the option I chose, as some of my favorite memories come from my favorite lake, and I just so happen to have a jar of sand from its beach. In my opinion, this is the best option to beat the onslaught of boring or tough workdays, because the sand from your favorite beach can be a very pleasant way to trigger your happiest memories. It makes the whole sand garden feel that much more meaningful, and I also believe it can help bring nostalgic undertones to the meditative practice. Of course, the downside of 'real world' sand is that it is much harder to get fine lines, but I find you're still able to rake successfully without too much difficulty.

Wow, who knew selecting a sand could be so difficult? Regardless of which option you chose, your zen garden will look great and serve its purpose wonderfully, so don't stress too much over picking the right sand (besides, stressing is antithetical to the purpose of the zen garden!)

And as far as filling it goes, it's relatively straightforward to slowly fill it with a spoon. That being said, a mess is inevitable, but some damp paper towels pick up the spilt sand in no time!

Now comes the most fun part: zen gardens usually have little decorative touches, and yours should be no exception (unless you prefer the minimalist look, in which case go for that!).

Similar to the sand debate, there are a million of ways to go about decorating your desktop zen garden. You could get cheeky with it and repurpose the keyboard keys as 'stones'. You could use rocks from your rock collection. You could add a LEGO mini figure, or coins from Europe, or some small collectibles, or a small patch of moss, or a twig, or whatever you please!

Again, the point of this project is that it's your zen garden. It's not a zen garden you bought online, or one that someone gifted to you, or even one that has to follow a set of instructions. It's yours, and you should feel free to craft it in such a way that it makes you happiest. Make it fun, make it relaxing, make it artistic, but whatever you do make sure you make it yours.

Oh, and the real beauty to a zen garden? It grows, just like you. If you decide you want to change the formation of the rocks, or swap out the rocks for crystals, or even change the sand, you can totally modify it however you please. One of the truest meditative qualities of the zen garden is the flow of it all, and a critical component to that flow is how you'd like it to look. So feel free to switch things up and change it every week, because I know I will!

Congrats! You finished, so now you get to relax-- and what better way to relax than to explore your new zen garden?

Rake it, admire it, think about happy beach day memories, or even get lost in the swirl of meditative lines in the sand. And even if you don't fully dive in your first time around, this is the gift to yourself that keeps on giving, and I promise you'll be enjoying this blissful experience for years to come.

Once you've relaxed and fully appreciated your new desktop zen garden experience, feel free to send a couple photos of it to your friends, family, and coworkers, because you deserve the award for best work-from-home desk ever. You didn't buy the best desktop appurtenance, no, you made your own, and it's the only one that could ever be truly yours.

(If you made it this far, thanks for following along! Feel free to comment any questions or suggestions, and if you make your own zen garden I'd love to see it! Stay safe everyone!)