The Birds Approve of the Junk!

We've had baby birds this week! It has been exciting to watch as mama bird made her nest in my junky, rusty flower bucket on the gazebo. Its made for easy and convenient bird watching. We discovered yesterday that we had babies and tonight as I watered outside, I notice mama wren was out hunting for food. I grabbed my camera and stood on the front porch and watched them.

 These birds are lovers of all things rustic and junky! Makes me like them that much more!

This was mama bird sitting her nest a few days ago.

As I watched the wren, I suddenly realized there was two wrens working on feeding the babies. This is a family affair! They both landed on this set of old bed springs before moving up to the gazebo rail, then into the bucket.

I shot this picture with my phone, so forgive the blurriness. Here's a glimpse of the babies! Sadly mama bird has taken two pieces of plastic into her nest.

 

 

 

I love being able to watch mother nature and photograph the life of these babies!

A Rusty Bucket of Kale

Someone was describing their son to me today and said "he was a winter time person..."

 

These words will NEVER describe me. I, for one do not like cold weather or the dreary days of winter and forget about snow. So this week I am happy. Our air conditioners are running in East Texas and its mid 70's. Most are complaining that it "doesn't feel like December", while I'm happy it feels like spring.

 

Over the weekend, I got to work in the yard for a while and I planted some kale in the rusty, bottomless bucket.

 Now you may be thinking I said the pansies and dusty miller would make it till spring, but I left out a small little detail. You MUST remember to water the flowers for them to survive! Life got crazy for a few weeks and since time changed (have I mentioned I hate DST), I get home after dark and didn't water. Oooops!

 Some of you might remember the original planting in the bottomless bucket last spring.

 I had been wanting to plant some kale for a while, but hadn't seen any in the garden center. Well last week that changed, so I grabbed three of the ornamental cabbages and decided they would be great for the bucket and should survive the winter with a little water along the way.

 I brought most of my plants out of the greenhouse to enjoy the mild week, but it sounds like the cold weather will return by next week. :( I've heard rumors of the twenties in the forecast.

 

 Now what was I suppose to do? Oh yeah, go water the plants!

 

 

A Junky Little Christmas Wreath

This morning I was working out in the yard: watering and transplanting some plants, cleaning up my greenhouse, and piddling around the yard for a while, when I was inspired to make a

Junky Little Christmas Wreath for my Gazebo.

 It all started with a used basic green Christmas wreath form.

 I had a string of 100 white mini lights, a rusty old license plate, a saw blade, and what I think is a medallion from a chandelier or light fixture. I "tied" these item on with the silk Christmas greenery from the wreath and then added 3 rusty bed springs.

 Then I added a couple strips of burlap fashioned into a bow. It still needed something, so I went and clipped a few branches off a cedar tree in the pasture. The clippings were tucked in and aound the wreath and viola - A Junky Christmas Wreath!

  I then headed off to town for a while this afternoon and then came home to this!

 Notice Bo - he thinks the chair in the gazebo is his bed!

 I wasn't sure if I was going to do any outdoor decorating this year, but I'm glad I felt inspired this morning.

 I hope you all have a Merry Junk-Filled Christmas!

 

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.

Welcome to the Junk Yard!

Ever since we completed our gazebo makeover last summer, I have been waiting to decorate it with spring flowers. When we painted and put the reclaimed tin on the roof, we were in the middle of excruciating heat and drought and most of my flowers had faded by that point.

Pull yourself up a chair and grab a glass of tea and sit for a while, like Annie the cat did. I've been trying to keep the dogs and cats out of the chairs, but Annie slipped passed me! (I'll share my trick for keeping them out of the chairs later.)

 Our gazebo was pulled from a trash ditch a few years ago. It was in good shape, but the former owners had rolled it down the hill into a ditch and has now become the focal point of our yard. There were actually two gazebos and our friend stopped and ask about them, so we each were able to get one! Last summer, we painted the gazebo white and my husband and brother came up with the idea for the metal roof. It was a complete surprise to me, because I was at work while they transformed the gazebo roof. You can find that reveal and more of the story here. 

Our yard seems to have become a "Junk Yard", as everything is reclaimed and recycled. Lots of vintage, rusty containers are now holding flowers. This old door sits in the gazebo and works as a back drop when I take pictures for my etsy items and I decided the door needed a wreath on it. So I made a junk wreath. A wooden window frame serves as the base, with a galvanized bucket holding a begonia. I made a burlap banner and painted J-U-N-K on each pennant. Bed springs add to the junky spring wreath.

 This is my view of the gazebo when I step out my front door! It makes me want to stay out there all day and night. I lit my candles tonight and love the glowy look as the sun went down.

Here is the Bottomless Rusty Bucket that has been a pinterest star! It is still in the same place. My earlier pictures didn't show the two springs holding the bucket very well.

 A bottomless chicken feeder sits on the table.

 I rescued this Igloo water jug from a trash dish this winter. It still had clean water in it. I'm not sure why anyone would throw this thing away. Since the weather has warmed up, I moved my nepthytis plant outside and it found its summer home in the Igloo jug.

More rusty buckets and wash tubs are filled with flowers. My goal is to not see any plastic flower pots in my yard and I only have a couple more left to hide!

I found this old Gulf can with a hole in its side. I set the springeri fern in the rusty can. I planted a few sprigs of spider plant in an old water jug. I had several plants to sit under this tree all winter with little care or attention. None of the plants looked great by themselves, but combined in unique pots with other flowers, they look much better.

I love the glow of my insulator chandelier.

I stole this washing machine tub from my husbands junk! Shhh, don't tell him!

A gym locker basket and Bundt pan serve as containers on this old bicycle.

A chicken feeder hangs from a tree with celosia, petunias, and creeping jenny.

Trixie says Thanks for sticking with us through all the pictures! I'll share more pictures and tricks I used to pull off my Junk Yard this week, so stay tuned!

Today was an absolutely perfect day...if the weather was always this pretty, I would be forever happy! Getting to spend the day outside, being creative, working in my yard, soaking up some sunshine, along with my favorite critters, makes me happy. Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend!