Looking Back on 2019!

2019, whew what a year!

We started making t shirts and more personalized items, while learning and creating more original designs.

You showed up and supported us at 16 shows. You drove from Indiana, Arkansas, Louisiana, West Texas, and lots more places to shop with us in rural East Texas. It was an exciting show year as we had our monthly shows at the Mineola Antique Fair, then got accepted to be included in Vintage Market Days of East Texas, we returned to the East Texas Yamboree with an indoor space in the exhibit building, had a great day at the Methodist Church Christmas Bazaar, and a fabulously fun time with Miss Gussie the glamper at the Gilmer Yulefest.

Through our etsy shop, our handmade items have now been shipped to all 50 states and multiple countries. We’re thrilled to help you with your weddings and special events.

We launched a new website and still trying to figure all that out. #workinprogress

Our Facebook page has more than doubled in size since early spring. Welcome, Y’all!

 And gosh, we all love the sweet donkeys and baby calves at the farm and they make their way into our post and even on our shirts!

 We marked 5 years of being self employed, creating pretty things for all of you.

But don’t think it’s been all roses though, as we all fight the behind the scenes battles, that don’t see the light of social media... #hideyourcrazy #focusonthegood

Through it all, we say a great big THANK YOU for being a part of our year and riding along with us!!! We appreciate y’all so very much! Much love to all of you! ❤️

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!