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

We also have fun decorating it for Christmas

https://www.gypsyfarmgirl.net/2017/12/christmas-in-gazebo.html

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.)

Christmas in the Gazebo

The Gazebo is now decorated for Christmas, so grab a cup of hot cocoa and let's take a tour! 

While the Camper Christmas is a fun mix of trees with lots of pink and turquoise parked along the driveway, the gazebo is tucked in our yard and has a more traditional color scheme with red, white, black, and grey.

 Natural greenery and berries, red trucks, a couple of fun gnomes, along with some buffalo plaid ribbon decorate the setting. Of course our rustic gazebo has plenty of galvanized buckets and containers, along with a dishpan snowman! 

I painted a red truck with trees and snow on a old chicken feeder. I picked cedar, pine, berries, and pine cones at the farm and added it to the buckets and the grapevine garland. Once the holidays are past and the greenery dried out, it will go to the compost bin. 

I had previously declared that I would never purchase used Christmas lights again, but I did. I found the old fashion big bulbs at the thrift store for $2 a strand. In my defense, several strings were still in the boxes. I did buy a couple of extra strings, in case I needed to change out a few bulbs.  I mean, $2 for this style lights is a steal of a deal! 

The youpon bushes are about to overtake the old bicycle. When I planted them, they were so small in 1 gallon containers - they sure have gotten big! By next spring, I may have to rescue the bike, until then, the basket on the front has more cut greenery and a string of solar lights. 

 Mr. Dishpan Snowman has a plaid scarf and consist of 3 old enamel pans. The holes were already in the small pan and make the perfect face!

I had to make a few gnome trees! (You can find the tutorial on how I made the gnome trees, here.)

This red truck was a Christmas gift and is actually a bird feeder and house! In the past, I've had a cardinal family spend a lot of time in the gazebo and even raise their babies in the bushes beside it, so I'm hoping they come back to visit. 

How to Make a Gnome Tree

Gnome, gnome, gnome - you've got to say it three times! So we have become a little obsessed with gnomes lately! If you've been following along on facebook or instagram, you might have seen our recent gnomes at our shows and even Jeff holding a couple of them! We even have a new gnome tee! 

I sure do love me some bearded boys! (Angea made the two that Jeff is holding, although I've made some that are similar for our shows.) 

 Our friends have said we need to make Jeff a gnome hat and others have said we should just call them "Jeff's" instead of gnomes! lol

Since then, I've been planning my outdoor Christmas displays and I decided we needed a couple of gnome trees! We went thrifting to find some items to make our gnome trees. I saw some very generic and skimpy ones at one of the big box stores, but you know us - can we make it cuter and for less? In this case, yes! 

I found two artificial trees - one for $2.99 and the other for $4.99 (it came with lights.) I picked two that had longer branches and instead of "fluffing up" the trees, I pulled all the branches down, except the very top branch.

 I found this grey sweater for a quarter. Now for the hardest part - I pulled it over the top of the tree, with one sleeve over the top branch.

 Now, just take a sharp pair of scissors and cut about where you want the gnome hat to be. I had the ribbed collar for the front of the gnome. Since I know where my trees are going and that they won't be seen from the back (after this how to), I'm not real concerned about it being perfect on the backside.

 I was outside and didn't have all my supplies nearby and I really wasn't even considering sewing the hats. I had been string lights on my other trees and of course that meant there was lots of those little twisty ties from the lights ( you know the wire ties that you take off the new lights?) Anyways, I take one of those wires and use it to "sew" the back of the sweater together. It was stiff enough to thread through the sweater and twist together, to make the hat fit better. I did trim the sweater up a little bit.

That's what the sweater looked like after making one hat. 

If you work with much greenery garlands, you know there's always a piece or two that will fall off. So I took one of those pieces and tied to the sweater cuff to close off the sleeve. I shaped the one branch that was still sticking up, to make the hat have the curve I wanted. 

 Now for a nose... I went searching for anything that would work and came back with a shatterproof Christmas ornament and simply hooked it on a branch under the hat. I saw one pretty gnome tree made with fresh greenery and they used a potato for the nose.

I added a few bells to the hat and a little more decor to make it complete. While the camper has a kitschy pink and turquoise Christmas vibe going on, the gnomes are headed to the gazebo, where there will be more traditional colors with red, white, green, and grey. 

Of course the gazebo has rustic metal containers, so the gnomes are sitting in a galvanized water cooler and on a pig feeder. 

So whatcha think? Two cute gnome trees for $8.23! That's a fifth of what I saw the store bought gnome trees for and they were skimpy.

Here's a sneak peek of the gazebo - stay tuned for the full gazebo reveal coming real soon!

The Rural Route

The rural route... country rounds, the scenic route, back roads, dirt roads, farm to market roads... 

It's tree lined black tops and wisteria climbing the trees. 

It's chickens crossing the road in front of you and the intoxicating smell of honeysuckle in the springtime. 

 It's old churches and cemeteries dotting the communities, along the way.

 It's breathtaking, unforgettable sunsets and the stars are brighter at night.

It's old barns and farmhouses, surrounded by fields of livestock. 

 It's driving 17 mph hour behind a farmer driving a tractor and knowing they are working hard, feeding the country, while probably barely making ends meet. You wave as you finally get a chance to pass as a way of saying thank you for your hard work and saying we've been there too. (Although, I've had cigarettes thrown at me, while driving a tractor down a farm road.)

Sometimes you take the dirt road and sometimes your boots are muddy.

It's a raised flag on the mail box and leaving a note and the mail lady pulls in and you visit while they scan in your boxes. (Oh how we miss our mail lady that retired! Can't wait till her replacement is officially confirmed.)

It's no matter the weather, you must get out and take care of business. No snow days and staying indoors all day. 

Sometime's there's cows out and in some places they actually have the right of way, due to some old free range laws still in effect. 

 It's bluebonnets and windmills in the springtime.

 It's farm to market roads that really do take us from the farm to the markets.

It's being broke down on the way to the market and having these pretty mules watch you change a tire on the farm truck. 

It's ice cream at the DQ after getting your load safely delivered and sharing with your best dog.

It's wildflowers in the summer time and praying hard for rain, because drought can be devastating out here. 

 It's rusty tractors and rustic wedding bouquets. 

It's cute baby calves and selfies. 

When you see daffodils blooming, without a nearby house, you ponder who lived there before and know there has to be an old well nearby. You wonder what the yard looked like, when the house and place was tended to on a regular basis and see how strong the daffodils are, to remain without any care or attention. 

Yes, it takes you longer to get where you're going, but that's more time to listen to the radio and enjoy the scenic route. It's less red lights and horns honking are either to say "howdy" as a neighbor passes by or to call the cows up from the back forty. 

It's time to think and dream. 

It's a raised hand on the steering wheel, as you meet someone.

It's where we learned to drive, way before they "officially" taught us in driver's ed. 

It's front porches (gazebos) and lightning bugs. 

It's what inspires us.

It's where we work.

It's almost all we know (Save two years in a college dorm and the only time in my life where we had pizza delivery. That town was 5 times my home town where I came from and my roommates thought they were in the boonies, and I was like "y'all don't even know what that is!" By hometown, I'm referring to 12 miles away.)

It's home.

It's simply where we belong. 

This new shirt was inspired by my life on the Rural Route and it's for all of you who enjoy those same things. It has a old red truck, star, sunflowers, burlap roses. a rooster, cactus, a Farm Road sign, and a distressed red, white, and blue damask background.

I guess I should also tell you about my new website, that I've recently launched. It's called Rust and Romance and well, it's a boutique for those who appreciate the rural lifestyle and things of the past,  with a little rust mixed in, all while enjoying it with the ones you love. 

Let me point out that our etsy shop, GypsyFarmGirl is STILL open and will remain open. This will be an additional stand alone website that I run and offers more opportunities for you to shop our goods. It includes being able to shop directly on Facebook and we have some of our items on eBay as well. Fingers crossed, we can eventually link it up with our Instagram account, as well. The new website is still a work in progress, as I get it all set up and figured out, so if you experience any glitches, please, please let me know. 

You can find this new Rural Route shirt on the new site right now, along with lots of other vintage style graphic tees. We've got most of our ready to ship items added to the new page, although the custom made to order items haven't been added yet.