Thursday's are for Junkin'

Thursday's are our Gone Junkin' day, aka girls day, aka shopping trip, aka business meeting (lunch at LaFinca), aka board meeting (planning out our booth spaces, junk transformations, etc), aka vintage market day and lots of fun!

Angea and I meet at our favorite little vintage market. We shop there first - Angea being the early bird, she gets a newspaper and we plan our garage and estate sale route, then we end with lunch at our favorite Mexican food restaurant. Some days there are good finds, some days it's not so good. Today, was a good day - lots of boxes and sacks in my back seat! Most of the sales were in dark barns today, since it was so cloudy and dreary, but that didn't stop us.  Ok, I will admit one dark barn was kind of weird in a creepy way and we left quickly without buying anything. That's the good thing about shopping in pairs and we vowed to never go back to that location. We both found boxes of vintage lace today, which is always exciting!

I can't pass up pretty vintage lamps, candlesticks, doilies, or silver platters

Or a very vintage flour sifter and bundt pans, or macrame or a gorgeous blush pink lace dress (so much gorgeous trim on it that will look fabulous in wedding bouquets.)

My mind is busy plotting what I will do with everything! I've got a few ideas and some things will likely show up in our Uniques and Antiques booth (exciting news coming soon about it) in Mineola. 

P.S. There's is a new batch of Gone Junkin' sleeveless shirts and distressed, bleached flannels available in my Etsy shop now! 

Fun Friday Finds

I saw an ad for a single garage sale in the mid-week newspaper and made up my mind that I was going early Friday morning. So I put on my warm layers, wool socks and big jacket and tore out early this morning. A yard sale in January is a rarity around here, so many junkers descended upon the scene. 

The shabby pink lamp was hid under another plain shade. I wondered what was hiding under the white shade and found this fabulous vintage hanging light! Now, it's got a few tares in it and the fringe has a few frays, but oh my stars, I love it. I came home, put a lightbulb in it and plugged it in and it works. Oh yeah, I think it needs to hang in our bedroom! 

My finds definitely took on a lamp theme. 

Two of these little chandeliers were in a box and I quickly snatched them up. We had a monsoon yesterday (okay, just a couple inches) and the box was wet. Halfway to checkout, the box fell apart. My heart sunk. I was relieve the globes didn't break though! One is complete and one is missing a few jewels. Now what to do with them? 

I had already checked out and went back and got this light. I had passed it up at first, but felt it would be the one thing I'd regret not getting. It may replace the globe in the camper, whatcha think?

And I got a lace wedding dress! It's hanging in my shower right now. Remember the monsoon? It was wet, so it's hang drying. When I buy a vintage wedding dress, I always get the same question: "So, you getting married?" Then I explain I do vintage burlap and lace weddings and bouquets, so I use it in decorations. (The last one is my curtain in the camper.) 

The old metal gas can jumped in my pile of goods too, along with a couple wreaths and the blanket. Don't get me started on those plastic jugs and flimsy spouts they sell today... 

 I drove home smiling - It was a pretty great morning! So do you have any recent thrifting treasures to tell about? 

Garage Sale Finds

I got up this morning and something just said I must go garage saling. I've only happened upon a random sale or two in recent months, but saw several ads in the newspaper for sales on my side of town. 

The mister wasn't ready nor shared my urgency to hit the sales this morning. 

So, I put on my favorite thrifted, vintage sweater and turquoise scarf, loaded up my sweet dog and we headed out. 

We enjoyed the fall beauty on the back roads and then we started texting back our list of finds and a few pictures along the way. 

This is the reason I must drive ol' trucks with a long bed! ;) I rescued a desk, chair, coffee table/bench, frames, wooden tote, counter top, a lace pillow, vintage cheese grader, scored a few shirts, a vest, and  Christmas garland. 

So now I have several projects to work on and fix up. Now to figure out what color to paint the desk and chair! What's your favorite color of furniture? 

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.

A Bicycle and a Bundt Pan

This bicycle has been a fixture in my yard for several years now. Last year I moved it by the gazebo and like to plant flowers on it.

The gym locker basket is wired to the handle bars and holds my parsley plant.

 In the past, I've used one of the coconut lined hanging baskets, minus the hanger, to put over the seat post, but this year I went with something different.

I know I said I wasn't going to buy any new flower pots from the store this year,  but I think this will  pass! I was at a garage sale earlier this month and saw this old Bundt pan for 25 cents. I wasn't even sure where I was going to use it when I planted the marigolds in the pan. I had planted the flowers and was walking around the yard when I saw the bicycle. The hole in the Bundt pan was perfect for the post on the bicycle! (I did drill a few drain holes in the pan for drainage.)

 No wiring or rigging a flower pot to stay on the bicycle! I then decided to add a few sprigs of creeping jenny to the cake pan, so that over the summer, there will be a cascade of greenery flowing out of the pan. Several years ago I bought a couple of creeping jenny plants and now I can take a few divisions from other locations to fill in as needed.

 I already had the parsley plant from last year and I used less than 5 small marigolds for the bicycle. I think the 6-pack of marigolds was around a $1.89. So the total cost of flowers on the bicycle came in around $2.00!

To see more pictures from my "Junk Yard", please click here. I'll continue to share tips and tricks for how I pulled off my frugal, rustic, vintage spring gazebo in the coming days.

This Weekend

Friday evening, I got off work a few minutes late, went to the bank, the feed store, my brother's house and then finally went home. I was tired, but decided to go to a party! Not just any party though, Donna at Funky Junk Interiors holds a weekly Saturday Night Special party over on her blog, and it had been a while since I had been partying with her. My new little rustic garage sale chair and bathroom projects wanted to go out and visit, so we did!

Well guess what?

While we were at the party, this little rustic chair flirted around and got noticed by Donna and she featured the vignette on her facebook page and on pinterest!

 WooooHoooo!!!

Well then this little chair started making eyes at several others and started quite a commotion with likes and pins, new followers on our blog and on pinterest too! So to ALL our new Friends, we would like to say "Howdy!" We are blushing and happy to have you following along with us.

Thank you Donna for throwing a great party and featuring my rustic vignette! You made my day!

Bathroom Makeover - Junk Style

Yesterday I shared my little chippy chair and today, I'm sharing the bigger picture! I am slowly working on renovating our bathroom. I was really needing a towel holder and this wall was blank, so I decided to hang this shutter on the wall. Two nails inserted through the hinges secure the shutter to the wall.

So you may be asking, " what's holding the towels?"

Farmall Man had a very inquisitive look on his face when I ask if we had any broken bungee cords laying around somewhere. With life on the farm, there is always a bungee cord somewhere. Low and behold, he had a drawer of salvaged metal S hooks. My man doesn't throw anything away ;) We recycle and reuse!

So the S hooks are used to hold the towels! No nails or damage to the shutter and an easy-peasy fix.

I already had the vintage shutter and bath sign on hand, I created a square rag wreath by using a picture frame base, and found the license plate for 25 cents at the garage sale last week. The shower curtain, complete with hooks, was found, new in package at a garage sale for a $1.00 last fall.

A recycled wooden picture frame was used to frame a basic mirror.

The old chair serves as a tub-side table.

I'm excited about my new towel rack and having towels hanging at an arm's reach from the bath tub.

So if you are keeping count:

$5 chair

$1 shower curtain

25 cent license plate

All other items were free or reused from somewhere else!

Now on to the next bathroom project...I need a new vanity. I have something very unique in mind, if I can only pull it all together!

I'm linking to:

Savvy City Farmer

This Old Chippy Chair

I happened upon my first garage sale of the season last week and found this neat little chair for $5.00! I couldn't pass it up, as I saw too much potential. Better yet, no painting or sanding was required to get the rustic, shabby chic look I like!

Just the day before, I had been cleaning out a cabinet and found the rusty, vintage scale. For the life of me, I don't know why I've been storing  the scale. I mean what was I thinking? I decided to use a couple of old encyclopedia books to elevate the scale. After all, my husband insist we keep the books, so I should use them to decorate with! Right?

I decided to cut a few fresh jonquils from the yard and placed them in a fruit jar with a burlap tie. The jonquils have just about all bloomed in the yard and I was glad to enjoy the flowers indoors for a few days longer. A couple of candles completed the arrangement.

I love the shabby chic style chair and am glad I stopped by that garage sale.

 Tomorrow I'll share where the chippy chair is sitting and the bigger picture! Here's a hint...

Any guesses what room I'm redoing?

I'm linking to the following: