Exciting News: We are Joining the Mineola Antique Fair!

First off, in case you missed our earlier announcement this month, we decided to close our Uniques and Antiques booth in Mineola at the end of May. Everything in our booth is currently 1/2 off till we move out. 

Now, for the good news! When we decided to close our Uniques booth, we really didn't have an exact plan. Angea and I discussed Facebook sales, ramping up our vintage finds section of our etsy shop, and doing a few fall markets. Kinda take the summer and revamp, work on new stuff, and see how things went. Honestly, we were just going to wing it, until we got an invitation to join the Mineola Antique Fair last week! 

A few messages back and forth and a trip to check out the venue this weekend and we signed papers to move in for the June show!!! When one chippy vintage door closes, another one opens up, so now we've got to get busy! 

We got a new booth to build from the ground up. The fair is held in a 111 year old building and its about 12 foot to the rafters! Angea and I are sketching ideas and consulting our guys for help to build props and displays. Jeff is pretty excited about the project and we are happy to have his help! 

The Mineola Antique Fair is held the second Friday and Saturday of each month, with our first show being June 8-9, 2018. We will actually be working this booth, so we will be excited to see and visit with each of you! So mark your calendars now and make a plan to come out!

Check out some of the pictures that they posted on Facebook from the May Fair! Seriously lots of eye candy!

While you're in Mineola, you've also got to visit Farmhouse Fried Pies - that is one thing we were going to miss, when we decided to close our booth! We stopped to get some pies after we had signed our papers and checked in on our Uniques booth. We sat there to eat one and sketch out a few ideas. Of course, I get to talking with my hands, my mind running wild with ideas, and I nearly hit a woman when she walked past our table! Oops! Fun times are ahead! Everyone we visited with talked about how nice Joyce and Deanna (owners of the venue) and all of the vendors were. We are looking forward to joining the group! Now, excuse me, I've got to go get busy on weddings and preparing items for the show! We'll start sharing some sneak peeks closer to time and hope you'll come out to see us. 

Mineola Antique Fair

115 Lankford

Mineola, TX 75773

Behind the Sonic on Hwy 80
(just a few blocks off Hwy 69 and close to the depot / railroad tracks in downtown Mineola.)

How to Create a Faux Ship Lap Wall and a Unique Clothing Rack

Last week, Angea and I gave our booth space at Uniques and Antiques a mini makeover! We had  been pondering painting the walls (yes, again) and we wanted a new clothing rack.

Our goals for the makeover:

• transform the appearance of our wall
• not disrupt our space for a long period of time, since the store still had shoppers
• use items we already had to create an eye-catching and creative display
• create a better clothing rack, allowing better access to shop our one of a kind pieces

So what did we do?

• A faux ship lap wall
• A clothing rack and shelf  made with old porch columns, a tree limb, and a board. 

You might recall that we painted our walls a whitish - grey color, when we moved into this space last June. You can see that makeover here. We had picked out a light grey paint, but it looked much whiter on the walls in our booth. The two side walls of our booth are made of thin paneling and it makes hanging things on the wall a little more difficult, so we decided the clothing rack would be set in front of the paneling wall, giving us more access to hang things on the back wall (that is much sturdier and we can drill or hammer into it.)

"Junking isn’t just about finding or selling something for us. It’s the adventures we have, the friends we make along the journey, and being able to take something we found and creating something new and different." - Janice

So how did we create a ship lap wall for pennies? Painters tape and some grey paint! 

Angea measured off 8 inch marks and I taped the lines. 

She then took cheap acrylic grey paint (that she already had) and thinned it with a little water.

Then we both went to town painting a thin line, right above our tape marks, to give it the appearance of board planks. 

My lines weren't perfectly straight, but neither are old boards 😉😉

We dabbed our previous nail holes with paint and then I used an envelope as a guide to create the vertical lines. We were just winging it at this point and I found an envelope in my planner, that made it easy to draw the lines, without needing additional tape.

Easy peasy and then it was time to create our clothes rack and put everything back in our booth! 

"You gotta crack a few eggs to make an omelet" - Angea

There's a mess, before its going to be pretty...

We previously had two chairs hanging on the walls, to hang our clothes on, although we decided we needed something with more hanging space and easier to browse through the clothing. I saw a suspended branch clothes rack on pinterest that we both really liked, but we didn't want to have to deal with hanging things from the ceiling or involving our guys having to go help us. We got to brainstorming ideas a few weeks back and decided to take columns to build a display!

A little back story on the columns-
Angea called me one morning last year, that she had found two porch columns at a garage sale for FREE and ask could I come pick them up in my truck! I got dressed and went to rescue them for her! Later on, she found feet for them at Canton Trades Days and we hauled them home with us last spring. Trust me when I say the ornate feet weren't cheap and Angea says it would tale a "pretty penny" if someone wanted them! 😉

A board attached on top of the columns anchored it all together, give us a display shelf , and support for us to hang our tree branch and clothes.

We took some grapevine, greenery, and lace and wrapped around the arch, then started filling her up! 

We must say, we are excited about the outcome and spent very little out of pocket to make it happen! Win-Win, especially when you rent the space and want to make an easy makeover.  

You can catch more of the booth and reveal in our Facebook Live video below. I really like the ship lap look on the one wall, so we may go ahead and do the other two walls soon. What do you think???

Chippy, Peely, Vintage...Be True to What You Love!

This time of year, we see all the post about trends for the new year. Such is the case with a podcast I recently listened to. All the painters interviewed said that distressed white was a trend of the past and 2018 would be a year of bold colors. I nearly caved into their thoughts. Should we start incorporating bold colors in our home, even though I'm not crazy about them? Maybe I should repaint my desk, the walls in our booth, yada, yada, yada??? While I love navy blue for clothes and wedding bouquets, I don't think I want it on my walls or furniture. Same for black or hot pink... I'll admit, some of the designer pieces are fabulous, but I they don't match me and my personal taste.

Then I saw this post on Facebook by Junkin Addict and reminded all over again that the vintage, shabby, chippy, linen and lace look is absolutely gorgeous!

I've even got a whole Pinterest board called Chippy Peely Vintage Love, devoted to all things chippy white, with a little color thrown in. It's the things that make my heart go pitter patter! I love this style and must remain true to myself, no matter what big time designers say the "trends" are. Our homes and style are suppose to be the things WE love, not what someone else says we should. If you can pull off the bold colors, do it. If you love distressed white, own it, keep it!

I've had white cabinets and furniture way before Fixer Upper Farmhouse Style was so popular. I went through a faze where I painted my kitchen cabinets deep green, because I saw it in a magazine and thought I liked it... A couple of years of that and I was so sick of it and went the peaceful vintage white look. I still love the look till this day, with no plans to change anytime soon. I have many of my grandparents and great grandparents kitchen gadgets displayed on my walls.

  I mean, vintage kitchen gadgets against a loud wall... I don't think so!

Last week, Angea and I rearranged our booth and took down the Christmas decorations. We went with the rustic, vintage romance, shabby look on the mantle this time. I had been dreaming of the big chunky frames on the mantle for a few months and it finally happened on this trip. Along with the frames, we added several heart themed items, wings, and vintage lace.

A few other new pieces in our booth include this vest / kimono / duster. The lace added to this denim vest was originally the skirt of a vintage wedding dress! The rosette brooch pin was also created from the lace and tulle skirting of the dress. 

 Old hankies, vintage lace, and linens were added to the pearl snap flannel to create a one-of-a-kind duster.

 Be one-of-a-kind and don't feel like you have to follow what everyone else is doing.

 This mantle makes me giddy... not bold paint colors or some trends, I'm told I should like. Granted, we are discussing painting our booth again, but I can tell you, it will be something Angea and I both love and will have that timeless feel to it!

We've got big plans for creating a new feature in our booth, so stay tuned to see if we are able to pull it off like we envision! 

So tell me, are you planning to paint or makeover your home this year? Will you be using new bold colors? 

Or are you planning to keep or paint white or lighter colors?

What ever you do, I hope you remain true to what you absolutely love! 

(The last five pictures above are from our Uniques and Antiques booth in Mineola, Texas. 

You can shop there Tuesday-Saturday 10:00 to 5:00. 

Some items are also available in my GypsyFarmGirl etsy shop, with worldwide shipping.)

Sewing Stockings and Reminiscing

I've been sewing stockings today, for a custom order and it had me thinking about several things.

For one, I'm a self-taught seamstress. Sometimes that can be a frustrating thing. A couple of weeks ago, I was working on an set of stockings and as Angea would say "I nearly lost my Jesus." It was a disaster and I cut up / scrapped three of them today, because I totally made a mess of them. It was one of those orders that I should have said "No" to from the very beginning, as it was something more complicated than I usually take on...

I really don't know how to use patterns, so I just create my own templates to use. Sometimes getting everything sewn in the correct order - wrong sides together, sew,  right sides together, sew, flip, sew, yada, yada.... gets confusing. Thankfully, today I was able to peacefully sew all of the stockings without any complications! 

While Grandmama was an excellent seamstress and made all my dresses up till 8th grade, she didn't teach me to sew. I watched her quilt and occasionally helped a little bit. As an adult, I wished I would have learned so much from her. You know, there are so many skills that I wish would have been passed down from the older generations. Maybe they thought we weren't interested or would never use the skills. I'm sure she's looking down and surprised to see me sewing and making a living with fabric... I also wish I would have learned more in the kitchen and garden from my grandparents.

 The first thing I ever remember sewing was a giant stocking for Jeff. It was our first Christmas together and I decided to make a huge stocking and fill it with things for him. I was staying at Grandmama's house that night (she had a stroke and couldn't stay alone, so I stayed with her a lot) and decided to use her machine to sew the stocking. I think my mom helped me some, but I really just made Grandmama nervous with my sewing. The stroke affected her speech, so she couldn't properly communicate and teach me at that point.  It all worked out in the end and if I look in the storage building, I can probably still find the stocking.  After she passed away the next spring, her old Sew Gem sewing machine became mine. I don't use it much anymore, as I have two other machines, although its a treasure I'll never part with. 

The stockings were hung on the mantle with care... this is a snapshot of our shared booth at Uniques and Antiques. Angea makes the French Country style stockings, while I created all of the burlap stockings. You can also find my burlap stockings in my online shop, with worldwide shipping. 

Our stockings are all handmade, right here in East Texas!

What's the one thing you wish your grandparents would have taught you? 

Peace on Earth - A Christmas Vignette in an Old Drawer

I recently created this Christmas vignette in an old wooden drawer. 

The wooden drawer was destined for the burn pile, at a house we helped clean out. I just can't stand to throw away good wooden furniture, when its still in good shape.

First I chalk painted and waxed the drawer. 

Next, I inked and aged some book pages for an old timey vintage look and attached them to the drawer. Later, I added the 12 x 12 piece of scrapbook paper with the snowy pine scenery. I then added the piece of old chicken wire to the front of the drawer. 

 I've looked for old bottle brush trees and vintage deer at every estate sale we've gone to this year, although they have been few and very far between. I finally found these two gold bottle brush trees and decided they would fit in my scene. Still, I needed deer. I finally found a wooden deer that I liked and decided he was already painted a white distressed look that would match my vision.

I attached the deer and trees and then tucked a layer of "snow" (cotton) around them. I had the Peace on Earth wooden sign / ornament in my stash and decided it belonged on the back wall of the vignette. I loved that the sign had the pine branches incorporated into it and thought it helped pull it all together. 

 A piece of burlap ribbon is tied around the drawer pull. The vignette can be hung on the wall, without any additional hangers added, since there is enough lip in the drawer front to hang it from or it can be set table top, etc.

P.S. This vignette is now available in our booth at Uniques and Antiques in Mineola, Texas or you can follow the directions on how to create your own scene. 

10 Random Thoughts and Pictures

It's been a busy week on the go and I thought this was going to be a quite week! So hears a few scenes from the week

1. Sunset from the farm on Friday night - If you look close, one lone cow can be seen through the smoke settling over the pasture from a nearby property. 

2. Leaves are changing colors and falling fast. 

3. Cow silhouettes at sunset are one of my favorite things and those big ears!

3. Not so favorite thing - being wet and cold. Granted, I am very thankful for rain, I just don't like cold rain and getting soaked or having to wear too many layers to move and still being chilled to the bone. #readyforspring 

4. Daylight savings time... I'll gladly give up an hours sleep to spring forward again. All the clocks in the house haven't been changed yet.

5. I begged Jeff to drive one day, so I could do some hand sewing for a bouquet. #multitasking

6. These 2... sharing lunch at the DQ! We made the big loop Friday to the farm, shipping cattle, lunch at Dairy Queen, then went on to restock our Uniques and Antiques booth, then back home again. I "work from home" although I drove about 150-175 miles yesterday for work...

If you read my blog post from a few weeks ago, you'll know Trixie loves DQ and yes, she insisted upon going yet again! 

7. I packed up orders, including this bouquet, then headed off to the post office and skated in there with 3 minutes to spare - crazy Friday afternoon traffic in a small town... geez Loiuse! I could not deal with big city traffic.

8. Turquoise Shiny Brites... all the heart eyes! If I had room to put up a big tree in the house, these would not be available in our Uniques and Antiques booth. 

9. Santa Flannels arrived in our booth yesterday! One sweet customer bought a flannel before I ever got it hung up and several more of our rustic Christmas decorations. P.S. If you are reading this... Thanks Again, it was so nice to talk with you!

10. I officially became a coffee drinker this week! I ran out of orange juice before we could get back to the grocery store and Jeff made me some coffee. I doctored it up a little bit and I think I'm going to be hooked! My tumbler has been filled with coffee on several of our cold trips this week... pssstt,  there are new yeti style cup wraps in my shop.

Hope you had a great week!

To Everything There is a Season...

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
Ecclesiastes 3:1

As the Yamboree approaches this week and lots of fall shows are coming up, we wanted to let you know that we are not participating in any shows this season. It's a bittersweet thing, although we have had several local large events and weddings scheduled this fall, along with devoting our time to being more available for my local and online customers and creating new inventory for my shop, as well as our booth space with Angea at Uniques and Antiques in Mineola, Texas. We've simply  got a lot going on and as much as we try, we can't do everything.

The fall wedding season has been busy and lots of last minute wedding orders have been coming in for rustic wedding bouquets, so we are happy to be able to accommodate the request. 

Plus we are gearing up to release some fun Christmas items soon. To our customers who loved our flannels and repurposed clothing items - you can find them online and some in our booth.

We will miss getting to see and visit with everyone at the shows this season. Please know that if you need anything, I can be available to meet or deliver locally, plus I ship worldwide. We were quite honored the Vintage Market Days of East Texas and Junkin' Across Texas reached out and invited us to their fall shows, although the dates conflicted with another big event we are helping with.

Janice and Angea at last years Yamboree.

This year, our booth at Uniques and Antiques is open 5 days a week, all year long and Angea and I regularly update our space there. In fact, there will be a Christmas Open House on October 27 - 28, 2017. We will be in the store part of that time. The Mineola Iron Horse Days will be happening nearby, so come out and enjoy a beautiful fall weekend in historic Mineola and maybe we will run into you there!

So this season, we are concentrating on our online shop, our booth, and our local, loyal customers and friends (several have already placed Christmas orders for house/tree decorating and cemetery flowers.) Oh, and the farm critters need some attention too! I want to give the best service to everyone, without compromising care and quality. Of course, if you need something, please don't hesitate to email, message, or call me!

Our Uniques and Antiques booth  - it will be getting a Christmas makeover very soon! 

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