Sunday, March 29, 2020

Let's Take a Drive

I keep finding myself saying "this is all so crazy." Really, I'm not sure how else to describe the current pandemic situation. Everything is closing,  being cancelled, or much slower than usual. Finally, on Friday, I had a few deliveries to drop off and a few things to ship out. 

I haven't been out much on my own, for over two weeks, so I was itching to have a purpose to get out, where I could control the radio station and feel free to stop in the middle of the blacktop road to take a picture or 10. (Jeff and I still go to the farm and help with his parents, but otherwise that's about all the places we've been since our last show.)  

Side note - If you are staying home, make sure you crank your vehicle every few days or you might have a dead battery - my older battery didn't like setting idle for 9 days and had to be replaced. 

So come along with us and I'll show you some of the East Texas back roads that I traveled, while making my deliveries. Everything is turning green, the dogwood trees, and wisteria are all blooming, along with clover, Indian paintbrushes, and "yeller" weeds as my daddy called them. 








One of the roads I traveled down has very little traffic and I love this spot, so I got out of my vehicle to take a few pictures of the wisteria. I decided to take a short video, trying to capture it all. Hope you enjoy my walk along "wisteria lane." 







Hope you enjoyed our short drive around the rural route! We will try to share more of the spring wildflowers that we see and hope you'll do the same, since we can't travel everywhere. 

We had planned to go to the Ennis Bluebonnet Trails this spring, but it has been canceled as well. We will  miss seeing the bluebonnets, since we don't have large fields of them here in East Texas. Even though we could stay in our vehicle, travelling the bluebonnet trails is restricted, since visitors to the area would need public restrooms that are closed, etc. So we will try to share some pictures from years past and look forward to getting back out there in the spring of 2021.  

Hope you are all staying safe and well. Please hang in there and we will all make it through this time. 





Sunday, March 22, 2020

Oh Corona...

Just a little over a week ago, we had our show at the Mineola Antique Fair. While we all practiced extra hand washing, had plenty of hand sanitizer, and didn't hug on all our sweet customers,  I don't think many of us realized just how serious this was quickly becoming. (At that time, gatherings in Texas were strongly discouraged if attendance was above 250 to 500+, while the building we were at doesn't have that capacity at any point.) 

Since then, group gatherings are limited to no more than 10, lots of stores are closing, we can't eat in a restaurant, schools are shut down for several weeks, and the list goes on. 

Since this is the week after a show, not too much has changed in our personal life, with the corona virus restrictions. Now please hear me out! I work from home, almost all of the time! The week after a show, I am always working from home, making sure all the recent wedding and online orders are being made and fulfilled. This week has been all about wedding bouquets and I've been in "the factory" (my small bedroom turned work room) making lots of burlap roses. I would label myself as an "extroverted introvert." I was working in public (our show) and on the go for several days last week and now I am happy to be at home working in the quiet. Jeff and I both work from home, so we've really only been in contact with 4 other people (family members) this week, except for a few store clerks, where we picked up the essentials. 

We also still have to go the farm and take care of animals and that doesn't change, no matter what the conditions are around us: rain, snow, drought, sunshine, or pandemic... the well being of our cattle and donkeys must still be attended to. A couple of new babies have certainly brightened our week!  
Please say hi to Gracie! I ask on fb and ig for name suggestions - there was so many that I couldn't decide. Jeff's mom saw her pic and a video, then I read her all the names and she said "she looks like a Gracie to me," so Gracie she is! 

Jeff and I also help provide some care and assistance to some family members, so we are helping them all the same. 

We live about 12 miles from town, so we normally only go grocery shopping once a week or less anyways. Tuesday, we did have several important stops in town to make, but we only went into the stores one at a time. He went into the feed store, I went in the grocery store (Have mercy at the empty shelves - it was late in the evening, so it wasn't crowded and I got almost everything I was after.)  We've got hand santitizer in the truck and use it before and after entering each location. I cleaned my desk and even found some more hand santitizer that was a freebie from a booth at the Yamboree last fall - it was like finding gold, lol! 

We seldom eat out together, so we continue to eat at home, as usual. 



Corona Virus has us like "Whoa Nelly!" 

A couple of things that have changed for us: 
We haven't been in such a rush this week and didn't set an alarm on most mornings. I've been saying "I'm tired" for several weeks, so I'm taking this time to get some extra rest. I've also had a "cranky" sore foot that is bothering me, so I'm trying to be easy on it as well. 

Angea and I didn't go junkin' or eat lunch together on Thursday. We usually meet on Thursdays and go pickin' and hunting for new inventory or restock our booths, then have lunch aka "board meetings". We've had a few "phone conferences" but haven't seen each other since we left Mineola last week. 

We know our shows scheduled for April will not happen. Vintage Market Days of East Texas has been postponed to June 18-20 in Lindale. The Mineola Antique Fair will not be held in April and we hope we can all gather there in May. 

We still have items at Kickin' K Cattle Co. in Quitman - although the boutique is not open daily now, but she will meet for curbside service on appointment and is offering free shipping on most orders over $25, till we get through this pandemic. Kadyn is also doing facebook sales or you can contact her for items in the store. Kickin' K just joined instagram too, so please welcome her and tell her I sent ya! 

We are taking extra precautions, washing our hands even more that usual! #washyourhands

Even if our clothes don't seem to be dirty, we are washing them after going anywhere. (you know how you wear a shirt for a little while when going to town and it doesn't get dirty, so you lay it over a chair to wear again - now it's going in the dirty clothes as extra precautions.) 

What to expect in the coming days from us:

We will continue to work on our wedding orders and ship items from our home on the rural route in East Texas. Orders will still be processed in a timely fashion and shipped out. The USPS says they will continue to deliver! I am ordering more supplies online, instead of going into the store to shop. 

I still haven't unloaded my vehicle from the Mineola show and we have some new shirts to photograph and list online. (This is something else I usually do the week after a show, but since we've been getting extra rest plus it's rained a lot this week, we didn't get around to it and my "wagon" hasn't been cranked all week, as we've just been going places in the "farm truck")  We are considering doing a live sale on my Facebook page this week in addition to getting our new things uploaded to our websites. If you are interested in the live sale, please head over to our fb page and make sure you have notifications turned on. 

This is a peek at a few of the new designs to be listed! 


We will continue to wash our hands a lot and hope you will as well! 

We will still maintain our daily positive words of encourage, fun memes, and pictures on our facebook page to help get us through this difficult time. 



We are always, always grateful for your support of our small handmade business and appreciate each and everyone of you!!! We understand there is so much uncertainty at this time and we are so very thankful for everyone who orders a shirt, allows us to design your wedding bouquets, fix flowers for your loved ones or events, or comes to our shows.  We couldn't do this without all of you. Thank you doesn't seem adequate enough, but we don't know how else to say it. We do hope all of you are well and we can't wait till we can see you all again soon!
Until them, we still have our website and etsy shop that you can find lots of our things (and there just might be a sale happening now!)  Send me an email or message on facebook or instagram. We are here to help you, however we can! 





Sunday, March 8, 2020

Our Rustic Gazebo

Years ago, way before we all had fabulous camera phones in our pocket and blogged about such projects, we rescued a gazebo from a trash ditch. Actually, we helped rescue two. Our friend had spotted two gazebos, rolled over on their side in a trash ditch, so he stopped and ask the owner if he could have them. Joey called Jeff and ask if we would help pull off the rescue, in exchange for one of them. We took a truck, tractor, and trailer and loaded them both up!

Well, over the next year or so, we completed a makeover on ours and it became the focal point of our yard. By this time, we were blogging all the time and took pictures of the process! We got featured by several blogs at the time, it's been all over Pinterest, and usually gets featured by a few garden pages each spring (that I see).

In January of this year, I was ironically enough out junkin', when I got an email that said "Country Living Feature." A staff writer was asking permission to feature my junk gazebo on CountryLiving.com in a round up of DIY Gazebos. Of course I said yes and they would link back to us here on our blog. (I love features, when permission is ask and credit given.)

I checked this weekend and discovered the article had been published a few weeks ago!

15 DIY Gazebo Ideas to Bring an Outdoor Oasis to Your Backyard

Have your gazebo match your style.

We are included at slide # 8. 




So for all of you who don't know the story or seen the past pictures of my gazebo, I'll provide a few links back to the original post for you to catch up on (or you can use the search feature and type in gazebo to see even more.)


Here's the original makeover with paint and a scrap metal roof can be seen
at https://www.gypsyfarmgirl.net/2011/08/gazebo-reveal.html
(please forgive the collage pages / pictures - I was also an unsuccessful affiliate for a digital scrapbooking website at the time and trying to use their products with my pictures.)



The first spring after the makeover and the unveiling of the Junk Yard can be viewed at
https://www.gypsyfarmgirl.net/2012/03/welcome-to-junk-yard.html
This is when I decided to only use upcycled, repurosed containers and you wouldn't see plastic or store bought planters. Some of favorite gazebo pictures reside here!



The Rusty Bottomless Bucket tutorial was also created around the same time. Find the instructions at https://www.gypsyfarmgirl.net/2012/03/bottomless-rusty-flower-bucket.html

galvanized bucket upcycled into hanging flower basket

We also have fun decorating it for Christmas




As you can see in the 
 2019 spring gazebo reveal, https://www.gypsyfarmgirl.net/2019/04/spring-in-gazebo.html, the shrubs and trees have sure grown a lot in the last few years. The bushes have almost overtaken the bicycle and now it's in need of rescuing! 

We've certainly enjoyed our Junk Yard and planting and decorating the gazebo throughout the different seasons. Thank you Country Living for including our gazebo in your round up! 


Please stay tuned, because the 2020 Spring Reveal will be coming soon! I've started planting in more unique containers. 




P.S. Want to feature or use our pics? Please ask like Country Living did and always link back to my blog. Also, please do not remove our watermarks! (I recently discovered some stolen pics with my watermarks cropped out and this does not make us happy.)





Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Let's Plant Something!

"To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow." 
- Audrey Hepburn 



My morning quote and picture that I shared on Facebook today spoke of gardening and later in the day, I just happened to find myself at the garden center!! Two actually! 

So we had to come home and officially kick off the spring 2020 gardening season! I recorded a live Facebook video planting some succulents in upcyced containers. Hope you enjoy and get inspired to get outside and plant something this spring!