Thursday, September 29, 2016

Pumpkin Seed Recipe and Flower Arrangement

When Alise from the Ranch Kitchen called me last week, asking for a pumpkin centerpiece for a wedding shower, my first thought was yay, fun, I love pumpkin floral arrangements. My second thought was pumpkin seeds!
I love Fall flowers and pumpkins together! 
But first, it's carving time!
Make sure you have two bowls, one for the stringy guts and another for the seeds. 
Rinse them off to get all the gunky stuff off. 
Then you boil them for 15 minutes, drain, season,
and bake for 30 minutes.

Yum! 

I think my original recipe came from Cottage Living Magazine (gosh how I miss it), although I've adapted it some over the years. I'm not sure why you boil, then bake, but that's what they said to do, so that's how I do it and they always turn out good. This time, I added chili, ground red pepper, and garlic powder to them and honestly, I didn't measure anything out. Just a little of this and a little of that, but the recipe is a basic guideline. Feel free to season to your personal taste. A few of mine, are well done, so word to the wise, check a few minutes before the timer goes off!  


So when your carving your pumpkins out this fall, be sure and save the seeds and let me know how it turned out! 




Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Sunset

Ahhh, a beautiful sunset tonight! 

The last few days / weeks have felt like I was stuck in a rut. The same routine, working long hours, working on weddings and getting ready for our fall shows. Not that I'm complaining  about work, I'm always thankful for it, but something seemed bland. Not much exciting happening this week, although October has some big things on tap.  I was supposed to be washing dishes, but walked outside with the dogs, and we had to stay a little bit, as the sunset was brilliantly painted in the sky. God's Masterpiece was expertly created and telling me everything will come together, in His time. 

Here's the series of pics, all within 10 minutes and as quickly as it appeared, it was gone. 



 

Monday, September 26, 2016

New Rustic Rope Christmas Wreaths

Y'all, it's only 89 days till Christmas! Say what??? 
This weekend, on facebook, I saw someone sharing only 90 sleeps till Christmas eve... 
This year is been flying by! Anywho, Christmas will be here before we know it and now is the time to start gathering up your Christmas decorating essentials. There just happens to be several new Christmas rope wreaths available in my shop now

The lasso wreaths are all one of a kind. This one features a rustic bell Christmas tree, snow covered greenery, along with a burlap bow, holly, and pine cones. 
Christmas Rope wreath

lasso Christmas wreath
A couple of different wreaths have the jute webbing, Christmas greenery, horse shoes, and pheasant feathers.
Western Christmas Rope Wreath
 A little glitter and grit - Gold glitttery Merry Christmas signs adorn several of the rustic wreaths.
Christmas rope wreath
 Another bell Christmas tree. I only have one of these trees left (and its a different size,) so there won't be any duplications of the wreaths with the metal tree.
lasso Christmas wreath
 The rope is intertwined among the Christmas greenery and red burlap poinsettias for this wreath.
western Christmas wreath

Cowboy Rope Christmas Wreath

The Cowboy Santa will be going to the Backwood's Marketplace event, November 19-20. 
Lasso Wreath for Christmas

 When I got in ropes this time, there was several red colored ones and they are perfect for Christmas! Red berries and a burlap bow, also accents this lasso.
Lasso Christmas Wreath
Have a Merry Cowboy Christmas! A rustic, hand painted sign, horse shoes, the city marshal's badge, pheasant feathers, berries and assorted Christmas foliage make up this wreath. 
Lariat rope lasso Christmas wreath


There are several more styles in stock, so please go check out my shop, now for best selection! 
I will be taking some of the wreaths to our Yamboree booth in October and Backwood's in November. If you will be at one of those events and want to pick up a certain wreath, please let me know and I can save it for you / give you a coupon code to purchase now and save on shipping. 
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Monday, September 19, 2016

A Junk Gypsy Book Inspired Project and a Sneak Peek at the Cactus Collection

"We love the unexpected, the gloriously chaotic combination of a million different elements... 
We love rock 'n' roll style as well as farmhouse. We love boho and hippie and country. The truth is. we're a little of all those things combined... We love color, but we also love white."
 -The Junk Gypsies in Designing A Life at the Crossroads of Wonder and Wander

Usually, I'm more of a farmhouse white, rustic and neutral colors with just a splash of turquoise mixed in, but recently I've been on a color kick! 

A few weeks ago, I would have never thought I would be painting leopard! Seriously, I don't even wear leopard, but I was inspired by a turquoise, pink, cactus and leopard piece of furniture I saw on Facebook and I knew I could do it on this night stand. I was in the middle of painting it, when I got the email that I was officially part of the Junk Gypsy Book Launch Team.

As part of the book launch tribe, I got to preview the Junk Gypsies book and was inspired by the DIY  Ombre Cactus and knew it could be used as a backdrop for my new collection and used at our Yamboree booth in October. I went a little rogue in following their directions and added a little extra to it. Instead of just spray paint (because I honestly ran out and used with what I had on hand - "granny economics"), I added an outline and a few brush strokes and glitter. 
What's better than turquoise glitter?!? 

 I loved the quote about grit from the book. As I said, I was working on the night stand and got the first coat of paint on it, then I stayed up late that night reading the book. The next day, I knew the top of the furniture needed something to finish it and recalled them sharing ideas of things to mix in your paint for texture. One of them was sand, so I added some to my paint and came out with a gritty texture to the top of the night stand and love the outcome. That's a picture of my paint brush with paint and grit (sand) in it and knew their quote was fitting. I'll never forget a discussion with a former boss, trying to justify his own actions, who said all teenagers and kids were lazy and my response "No sir, we weren't. Some of us were raised up with a work ethic"... Grit! Amie and Jolie so accurately describe the way I was raised.


 I've got a couple more coordinating cactus pieces of furniture that I have been fixing up and several new pillows, frames, and clothing items that will all debut and be available in our Yamboree booth. 
  While working on these items, I received an order for burlap bouquets in jade, hot pink, and purple and it all matches the furniture and pillows, so it made its way into my photo shoot this weekend.
 Not all who wander are lost.


Now for a couple other details: Preorder the Junk Gypsy Book  NOW (It comes out October 4)! It is fabulous and oh so inspiring! You can also enter to Win a trip to Round Top, lunch with Amie and Jolie, 2 nights at The Wander Inn and $500 shopping spree. They are also doing a book tour and I hope to meet them in person, when they come to the Pink Pistol in Lindale, Texas October 15!

The following week, October 20-22, we will be set up at the East Texas Yamboree Fairgrounds in Gilmer, TX. The cactus collection and almost everything you see in the pictures (and sooo much more) will be available then! We are buckled down, creating lots of new items and collecting lots of fun junk for our booth and can't wait to pull it all together with Angea from Rooster Tails! 


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Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Why Gypsy Farm Girl?

Why did you name your shop Gypsy Farm Girl? It's a question I get from time to time.

Lets rewind to the winter of 2010/2011. I stalked the Junk Gypsies website like crazy! Late nights on slow internet, but this website I found was creative and different. None of my friends spoke of it. It was like my own little secret crush. It was inspiring. There was the Miranda Lambert air stream they had done and well, in a word amazing. It was repurposing, rescuing, making something fabulous out of something ordinary. This spoke to me. BIG time. It was that junky, gravitational pull...


I knew, somehow, someway a camper would be a part of my future business. I had the love of the flea market and forever wanted to be a vendor at one. I figured I would have a booth and stay in the camper, but I knew deep down inside, I must get one, but it had to be affordable and older and fun. This was before everyone had a glamper and "glamping" was a big thing. I looked at every place I passed by, I would check out craigslist, but nothing affordable appeared. But still, I just knew I would get one. 

Back then, I had a huge pile of magazine's every month and Mary Jane's Farm was a must read for me. (Its about the only one I still pick up on a regular basis.) I stalked their website too and there's the line about the FarmGirl Sisterhood "We're country, we're city, and every texture and stripe in between. It's not where we live, but how we live." Add in Mary Jane was the queen of glamour camping... 

Junk Gypsy Inspired Photo Booth at a Farm Wedding! 

I was drawn to the Junk Gypsies and Mary Jane's FarmGirls (of course, coming from a long line of farmers, that part made sense) and the two collided to become GypsyFarmGirl. 
I was reading the new Junk Gypsy Book this week and was introduced to the poem by Rumi in it 
"Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray."
Wow! That's IT! Looking back, I NEVER expected things to turn out the way they have. I started my etsy shop with the idea of making a little extra money, in addition to keeping my job at the flower shop. A way to feed my creative spirit and share it with all of you. It's been an amazing journey. I worked at night and weekends, building up my little shop, not telling my friends and family (because of fear of failure). My products changed from the early beginnings. I found the camper I envisioned and fixed her up, I quit the day job at the end of 2014 and last fall we set up at our first market / county fair booth, along with our friend Angea aka Rooster Tails. Our very first booth, with Miss Gussie the glamper, of course, and other vendors couldn't believe it was our first ever show and said we should be doing the big Dallas shows and we heard several say "This looks like something the Junk Gypsies would do!" Of course, that was about the best compliment we could get! 
I've shipped bouquets, clothing, and home decor to 47 states and 6 countries! We are working towards our Yamboree booth again next month and will be joining the Backwood's Marketplace for the Winter Wonderland show November 19 - 20. I do freelance floral design and events and we have a farm. I love junk, cows, horses, tractors, and Jeff! Gosh, how he's believed in me all the way and always encouraged me to do my own thing! 



So there you have it - I was silently drawn to the gypsies and the farmgirls and they've led me to where I'm suppose to be today! 


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Saturday, September 10, 2016

The Junk Gypsy Book


Wednesday, I received an email saying that I was officially part of the Junk Gypsy Book Launch Team or the #theJGblt!  Jeff did not understand my excitement. I had applied in August and nearly forgot about it, figuring I had got skipped over. Only 100 people would be chosen to help Amie and Jolie launch their new book and I was fortunate to be one of them and received an advance copy of the book! What this also means is I stayed up way too late reading Wednesday night, well Thursday morning, because I could NOT put it down. Seriously, inspiring! Of course you all know that they have inspired several of my previous projects. The Junk Gypsies are extremely creative and hard working. So many of their stories, describe me. It's like we are soul sisters, together rescuing and transforming all the cool junk, traveling the back roads, and putting a unique touch to events and campers, except they are on a much larger scale than me. But let's not compare my relative new beginnings to something that has been 18 years in the making for them.
"So what is Junk Gypsy style? We love the unexpected, the glorious chaotic combination of a million different elements. We love things that have history. We're not looking for perfection. If we love something, we will find a way to make it fit. 

We love rock n' roll style as well as farmhouse. We love boho and hippie and country. The truth is, we're a little of all those things combined." 

Can I get an amen and hallelujah and pass the buttermilk biscuits?!? Oh yeah, Gypsy Daddy's buttermilk biscuit recipe is included in the book! I should be a good wife and try the recipe - that would excite Jeff. 

They discuss "granny economics." 

"It's the idea of using what you have instead of buying something new. The belief that new isn't always better. Like how our granny used the same worn out tin can for more than fifty years to cut biscuits instead of buying an actual biscuit cutter. Because to her, that worn-out can worked fine, so why buy a new one?" 

We must be kin, I mean we are all east Texas girls. I regularly use all my Grandmama's kitchen utensils (the kind you find in antique stores now), because they work just fine and why get new ones? Same with her scissors and pin cushion. I hold on and use those things with history and without plastic. 

We share a dislike of panty hose "We came to realize two essential truths 1) Our trying to conform to typical office dress codes was a lost cause. And 2) panty hose are the province of Lucifer." For years, well pretty much all my life, I've said the man who invented panty hose, should be hung by them. 
They are pure torture and I shall never wear another pair. 

Upon leaving their city jobs in the rear view mirror, and they "returned to our natural state of style (jeans), our spirits were uninhibited and our creativity was freed like a wayward antelope to his natural habitat." Amen, amen! This speaks to me and so relatable. 

There are so many gorgeous photographs, stories, and design projects, along with several DIY projects (stay tuned to some I'm already working on), road trippin' music playlist (I must download the ones I don't already have) and so much more. The book comes out in October, but you can preorder yours now and enter for a chance to win an all expenses paid vacation to Round Top to stay in the Wander Inn, a $500 shopping spree and meet Amie and Jolie. But you must promise to take me with you! Ok... just joking on that last part, but it would be super nice and sweet of you! 

These girls are the real deal and I promise you will love the book and be super inspired by the time you finally set it down. What are you waiting for? Hurry and go get it now!