Someone Had a Better Idea (20 Photos)

October 12, 2026

By Vidar

Nothing here needed a gallery.

Most of these began as something people walk past every day: a trash bin, a crumbling wall, a weed by the curb. These 20 photos come from some of our most-read posts of 2025.

🐈 Cat Bins

Two orange trash containers got cat faces, whiskers and a pair of fangs each. The real cat walking underneath doesn’t look worried about the competition.

More: Silly Street Art (8 Photos)

🦝 “Alice Has a Special Window for Proclamations or Soliloquies, Depending on Whether Anyone Is Listening” — By David Zinn

A concrete post base gets an arched chalk window, and a small raccoon leans out of it. No audience yet.

More: Happy Art by David Zinn! (16 Photos)

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🚌 “The World’s Longest Wait for a Bus” — By Michael Pederson

An empty bench with an official-looking plaque: 15 Sept. 2014, 8 am, to 19 Oct. 2024, 3:36 pm. The record holder has finally gone home.

More: Clever Art by Michael Pederson (17 Photos)

🔗 Follow Michael Pederson on Instagram

🧱 LEGO Wall Repair — Dispatchwork

The broken end of a stone wall, rebuilt in LEGO, complete with a row of tiny arched windows. It is part of Dispatchwork, Jan Vormann’s project of filling gaps in old walls with LEGO bricks.

More: What If LEGO Could Repair the World? (12 Photos)

🔗 Follow Dispatchwork on Instagram

🗑️ Cartoon Bins

Someone airbrushed faces onto a pair of wheelie bins: the brown one looks alarmed, the blue one sticks its tongue out. Collection day will never be quiet again.

More: Garbage With Style (8 Photos)

🏔️ “Mountains and Mirrors” — By Falko One in Cape Town, South Africa 🇿🇦

The empty window of a ruined building becomes this painted man’s glasses, and the glasses show the real landscape behind the wall.

💡 History Fact: Falko One was born in Cape Town and got his start in 1988 by painting a high school wall in the township of Mitchells Plain, while apartheid was still in force.

More: Urban Magic (9 Photos)

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🍄 Super Mario in the Cobblestones — By Pappas Pärlor in Sweden 🇸🇪

A pixel Mario made of plastic beads pops up from behind one pale cobblestone, as if the street had a secret level.

More: 90 Pixel Art Masterpieces: Pappas Pärlor’s Perler Bead Street Takeover

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🌱 “Urban Weed Awards: Most Delicate” — By Michael Pederson in Sydney, Australia 🇦🇺

A thin weed pushes up through a crack in the pavement, next to a bronze-style plaque. Somebody had to notice. The plaque is one of three in Pederson’s 2019 Urban Weed Awards, alongside “Unique Site” and “Best in Show”.

More: Clever Art by Michael Pederson (17 Photos)

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🐉 Dragon in the Brick — By David Zinn

One brick is missing near the sidewalk, and a small green dragon has moved in.

💡 Artist Fact: Zinn has been making art in and around Ann Arbor, Michigan, since 1987, and his street drawings are always improvised on location, according to his artist biography. His longest-running character is Sluggo.

More: Cute Art By David Zinn (16 Photos)

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🎬 Hollywood on a Dirt Pile

White letters on a mound of dirt in front of an apartment block. All it needs now is a few palm trees.

More: Funny Street Art (10 Photos)

🔧 Patched Behind the Drainpipe — Dispatchwork

Bright bricks fill the hole where a wall crumbled behind an old drainpipe. The pipe stayed exactly where it was.

More: What If LEGO Could Repair the World? (12 Photos)

🐦 Bird in the Plaster

A patch of fallen plaster already had the shape. Two drawn legs finished the bird.

More: Urban Art Hacks (11 Photos)

🎈 “We Are Free” — By Oakoak in France 🇫🇷

A plant clinging to a white wall is the balloon. Oakoak added the basket underneath, with two small passengers looking over the edge. The piece dates from 2012 and is listed on the artist’s own street art page.

More: Lovely by Oakoak (10 Photos)

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🚧 A Very Small Private Property — By Michael Pederson in Sydney, Australia 🇦🇺

A tiny fenced lot, barbed wire and a KEEP OUT sign included, protecting one patch of green between the paving stones.

More: Clever Art by Michael Pederson (17 Photos)

🔗 Follow Michael Pederson on Instagram

🐭 Cat, Mouse and an Axe

A stencil cat creeps around a building corner toward a mouse. The mouse is ready, axe behind its back.

More: Sculptures With Unique Creativity (24 Photos)

🕳️ “Lily Can’t Decide If She’s an Understood Overachiever or an Overstood Underachiever; Either Way, She’s Making a Lot of Progress” — By David Zinn

A chalk mole climbs out of the cracked corner of a paving slab, right by a doorstep.

More: Cute Art By David Zinn (16 Photos)

🔗 Follow David Zinn on Instagram

🥫 A Tiny Shrine to a Soda Can — By Slinkachu

A figure in white robes, small enough to miss, stands with both hands raised before a soda can lying on its side. Someone has planted a little cross on top.

💡 Project Fact: Slinkachu’s Little People project started in 2006. The figures are model train set characters that he remodels and repaints before leaving them on the street and photographing them.

More: Art on a Tiny Scale (7 Photos)

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📐 Concrete Corner, Rebuilt — Dispatchwork

The chipped corner of a low concrete wall, built back in striped LEGO. The parked car doesn’t seem to mind.

More: What If LEGO Could Repair the World? (12 Photos)

📘 “The Last Person on Earth: Survival Guide” — By Michael Pederson in Sydney, Australia 🇦🇺

A brochure holder on a gray wall, for anyone who has searched everywhere for people and found no one. The guide covers solitude, boredom and nostalgia.

More: Clever Art by Michael Pederson (17 Photos)

🔗 Follow Michael Pederson on Instagram