What I've Been Doing...

 Ms. Sally emailed me today checking on me...said it was the "grandmother" in her, so I guess its time I need to give an update here on the blog. I thought after Christmas things would slow down...wrong. That's when all the etsy convo's started coming and lots of brides are planning their rustic farm weddings. Therefore my etsy burlap and lace wedding bouquets have been keeping me busy.

First up were tan and cream burlap boutonnieres for Colleen.

The next order was for Amanda. She wanted white feather with her burlap roses and lace.

 

 

 

(see full image)
 Of course, all the while I work full time and like to chase sunsets in the evening on the way home. I am trying to post a photo a day on Instagram and this barbed wire sunset was one of my recent entries.

If you remember I did a large order for Ann last fall and she contacted me wanting to add pink burlap boutonnieres to their wedding.

Next came Morgan's red burlap roses. She had several bouquets for her wedding.

This was another photo a day picture. We also have a farm to run.

The picture above and below were part of Skye's wedding.

And now I'm working on Courtney's order.

I'm extremely thankful for my husband who helps me with everything. We are partners together and he helps me out from time to time. He's really been getting to know the mail lady this month as he handles shipping and receiving packages.

I have great news too! I contacted a friend a few weeks ago about modeling some bouquets for me for a photo shoot. Well she called me this week and was so excited...She's getting married! She is going to carry one of my bouquets and I am going to be the wedding coordinator, decorator, and photographer! So this means that in April, we will have lots of pictures from her farm wedding. Its going to be vintage - western, outdoors in the cow pasture.

So that is how January has been. I want to thank ALL the brides and families that have chosen GypsyFarmGirl for their wedding bouquets! Thank you for keeping me busy this month! I send my Best Wishes and Congratulations for your Wedding Day.

Fall Decorating with a Black Cat

I added a little more decorations to my outdoor fall dresser this week. I found these two scarecrows over the weekend and they have taken their place for the season. The woman at the store said "awww, you're taking these poor babies home..." You could tell she was a grumpy employee, who doesn't like fall nor decorating.

 

 Then I come home one evening and our sweet black cat was sitting on the porch rail that is hidden by the tin. She completed the autumn scene!

 Someone ask me on Instagram if she was posed here or if it was just a "kawinkiedink". Let me tell you, Annie does exactly what she wants to and there is no way to get her to pose on demand! The tin is attached to the back porch and she declares the porch rail as her very on cat walk. I really didn't think about her being fall decor when I set up the vignette.

 All my life I've heard how black cats are unlucky, but Annie is the sweetest black kitty and we are lucky to have her.

(taken with cell phone)

A Junk Dresser Makeover

With 2 1/2 days off this weekend, I had 2 goals in mind: decorate for fall and

 

get rid of this dresser. It has been junkin' up my porch for longer than I want to admit. When I say junkin' - this time it wasn't in a good way. See it all started last spring when I had an idea to plant flowers in a chest of drawers. I even found an old one at a garage sale for $5.00. Well my husband and his mom said it was in too good of shape to let it sit outside and ruin in the weather. I agreed with them and now its in our living room, perfectly chippy and vintagey.

 

Well a co-worker moved to a new house and this dresser was left in the garage and she said come and get it. We did, although it was in much worse condition than what we were expecting. I came up with an idea to create a vignette / mantle out of the dresser with rusty tin and barn wood. We found our supplies and then my husband had a motorcycle wreck and things went south from there. It hasn't been touched since.

So this week I decided it must go - I was sick of looking at it. I would salvage the handles and scrap the rest of the dresser. So this morning, I set about to clean up the porch and decorate for fall. Since the tin we had found for the project had been layed on top of the dresser, it hadn't deteriorated as much as I figured. Underneath the cheap laminate exterior was good lumber.

 

So as you can see, we used that old barn tin and created a fall vignette on the porch and the dresser is still here!

 

I literally slapped on some white primer and we nailed a piece of tin to the top of the dresser to shield it from rain. Two pieces of tin created a backdrop and then I went to decorating. I moved plants and junk from around the yard to create a little harvest scene. I can't wait to get some fresh pumpkins and gourds to nestle among the rustic items.

 Yes, that is a rusted coffee can used as a pedestal for my chicken feeder planter! As soon as I can find some pretty fall flowers, I plan to update the planter with pansies, kale and the such. I'm also tickled with the outdoor storage area. All the extra laterns and tiki fuel can be hid in the drawers. The grill tools are in one drawer and there's room to store chair cushions for the winter.

 

 At this point, I have spent zero dollars on the project - everything had been reused and recycled and I don't have to worry about burning a dresser. Granted the dresser is not in the grandest of condition, but it has held up over a year now and I like its shabby style. Even if it only last another year, I haven't lost anything. Now it's good junk and I'm happy with how it turned out.

Headed to a Canada Barn Wedding!

Earlier in the summer, Jody contacted me on etsy asking if I could include turquoise burlap  in a bouquet. We convo'd back and forth this summer about creating burlap and lace bouquets for her wedding next week.

 

I searched and found the turquoise burlap and designed a custom bridal bouquet for Jody.

She decided to have chocolate burlap roses for the quys to wear in the wedding. The three bouquets below were created for her bridesmaids to carry.

 Last week Jody ask me to call her on the phone to talk in more detail. It wasn't till this point that I realized she was in Canada, since my cell phone wouldn't place an international call. We played phone tag and finally got to talk over the weekend. In several years of online selling on etsy and ebay, Jody was the first customer I had ever talked to and it was much more personal than just an email.

 These small rustic bouquets were made special for the flower girl to carry and a throw away bouquet.

 When I talked to Jody, she told me her wedding was going to be in front of an old barn. I really wish I could have hand delivered all her bouquets to Canada and see it all in person! I told my husband if we weren't married yet, I would want my wedding on the farm, by our rustic barn and since Jody's bouquets are made out of all my favorite colors, I would want to carry bouquets like these.

His response was, well we are married and maybe your job is to help others create their perfect wedding day. I like his thinking.

Today I boxed all the burlap and lace bouquets up and sent them on their way to Jody. I have invited all the brides I'm working with to share their wedding pictures with you and me here on the blog. Jody said she would send a picture and I sure hope she does.

 

It was a pleasure creating these vintage style bouquets for you Jody. Congratulations and Best Wishes for your wedding!

 

Recycled JUNK Stuff

I've been working on several custom burlap and lace wedding orders recently, but found the time to create a few new things for my etsy store.  Here are some of my new junk style, recycled, repurposed items.

 Turquiose, aqua, antique white, and brown have been my go to colors recently and the colors were used in all these items. Layers of paint were distressed to create a chippy, peely, shabby chic look. A JUNK burlap banner is the focal point of this wreath, complete with rusty bed springs, vintage lace, and pearls. A perfect wreath for the junker!

I upcycled two wooden spindles with paint and drawer pulls/knobs to create fun Junk Gypsy style jewely holders. 4 turquiose knobs were attached to the base to create a fun way to display your necklaces and bracelets.

I added this heart necklace to my store as well. I found a pair of vintage clip on earrings at an estate sale recently and converted them into necklaces. I have been wearing one of the heart necklaces and listed this one for sale. The vintage heart is on a new 24 inch ball chain.

All items can be found in my etsy store. As part of my Christmas in July sale you can use coupon code CHRISTMASINJULY to save 15% on store items.

Shabby Chic Drop Cloth Curtains

Last week I rearranged my living room and it lead to new curtains! Canvas drop cloth met burlap banner, combined with rusty bed springs for this shabby chic makeover.

Throw a sweet little girl into the mix as well!

 It was ALL this chairs fault! If you remember, the garage sale vintage chair was sitting in the middle of my living room, blocking my view of the tv. Well I started rearranging stuff in my tee tiny little living room and somehow, someway, we found room for the chair, without having to get rid of another chair!

The $5.oo chest of drawers holds movies and magazines and stuff we seldom use, so it's alright that the drawers are partially blocked.

 To create my simple valance curtains, I tore a strip of canvas drop cloth to my desired length. Then I sewed a pocket for the curtain rod to slip through. I cut five triangle pendants from burlap and tied them to a piece of twine, which was in turn tied to each end of the curtain rod.

 Rusty bed springs and additional strips of the drop cloth were tied to the twine rope, adding more dimension and shabby chic flare to the curtains.

I like this curtain much more than the boring brown paisley valance that was here before. That chair sparked a good change in the house! The coffee table and a book shelf got several coats of chippy paint as well, but that's a post for another day.

"Precious Memories" Shabby Chic Lamp

After recently hitting up an estate sale and a few garage sales, I decided to use my "new" finds to create a very shabby chic lamp. I found this old Mason jar lamp base in my stash recently and knew I wanted to do something very creative with it.

I placed the lamp on my bed side table. I have a jewelry holder located on the wall above this table, hence all the necklaces hanging in the background.

Remember this picture from my road trip Saturday? I printed it out on my home printer and then matted it with chocolate burlap, with the help of mod podge glue.

 
I used lots of pearls, buttons, burlap, and vintage lace inside the large fruit jar.

I had some vintage style scrapbooking stickers (the calendar and stamps) that I glued to burlap and lace.

I grew up in church singing hymns out of the Heavenly Highway Hymnal and when a friend give me one of the old hymnals from his junk pile, I knew I would use the sheet music in craft projects. I'm calling this lamp "Precious Memories," because I used the hymn to create two paper flowers that are inside this lamp. I layered all of the elements till I had it just like I wanted.

 I will admit I bought the lamp shade new {gasp}. I wanted to finish the project over the weekend and just didn't have a lamp shade that would work. I used spray adhesive on the lamp shade then rolled burlap over the shade. I then used the lace trim around the bottom edge. I decided to loop more pearls over the lamp shade and took burlap strings (ravels) to tie the pearls to the burlap.

 I elevated the lamp by sitting it on top of the Heavenly Highway Hymnal and a vintage dictionary. I'm excited how my little lamp turned out!