Woman pranks family by replacing photos with crayon-drawings during stay-at-home order

Some people have been peering through Netflix’s bastion of true crime docs and classic Hollywood fables to curb their COVID-19 pandemic boredom. Others have taken up a new hobby with the new abundance of free hours that fill their days. 

For Kristen Vogler, one of her favorite stay-at-home pasttimes has been replacing family portraits in secret with colorful hand drawings.

The freelance web and graphic designer told FOX that the idea for a crayola portraits prank actually came months ago after she and her sister Kerri were talking about a video in which someone replaced family photos with shots of actor Nicolas Cage, but Kristen kept putting it off.

“Like a lot of other people I’ve been feeling the impact on the amount of work I have to do,” Vogler said. “However, on the bright side, that gave me the free time I needed to pull off the prank.”

Vogler said that she would wait for when her parents Paula and Mike were busy on a walk or a phone call where she would then hurriedly scribble down one of the portraits with crayon. Eleven days passed by with her parents not aware that their family’s likeness had been cobbled in crayon.

“We were standing in the room with the photos/crayon drawings just talking about the crazy rain outside and my mom sort of glanced at the wall and did a double take while saying, ‘wait, what?’” 

“They both have a great sense of humor and loved it,” Vogler said, noting that she couldn’t believe it took her family so long to discover it. 

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“Of course [they] had excuses for why they didn’t. My mom claimed it was her lack of glasses, and my dad likes to say he always knew in the back of his mind,” Vogler noted.

As for which portrait sits dearest to her heart, the Easton, Massachusetts resident noted that it might be one of her grandparents from day one of the prank. 

“Both of my parents were on a church Zoom meeting and I colored that replica in about 25 minutes, panicking the entire time that they would catch me,” Vogler said.

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Her favorite instance of replacing a photo, however, that may have been on Easter Sunday, which incorporated some help from her sister Kelly.

“I pulled the frame down and was in the middle of putting my drawing in when they both got up and started walking around during a commercial,” Vogler said. “That left me needing to hide in the bathroom, still holding the frame and willing them to go away. I still don’t know how the empty square from a missing frame was missed but it was and the prank continued.”

The prank has come to a close, but the current reaction to Vogler’s portraits has been nothing short of enthusiastic. As of April 20, they’ve garnered over 19,000 reactions on Facebook, 

“This is great!!! Laughed for 10 whole minutes!” commented one Facebook user.

“If it makes them feel better, I probably wouldn't notice for months,” wrote another.

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Vogler said her favorite comments aren’t even about the portraits themselves but rather her mom’s “rockin’ outfit in the discovery video, or her ‘corona couture’ as she likes to call it.”

“I never imagined it would have this kind of reach,” Vogler said, “and am really just happy that everyone finds it as funny as my family and I do.”