For a chance to win a FREE copy of the Junk Gypsies’ new book, Junk Gypsy: Designing a Life at the Crossroads of Wonder & Wander, tell me how MaryJanesFarm has inspired you to upcycle a junk find in the comments below. I’ll toss your name into a hat and draw a lucky winner sometime mid-December.
You’ll see how the Junk Gypsies have transformed vintage Airstreams into glittery glampers in the Dec/Jan issue of MaryJanesFarm. Stay tuned for more magazine-related giveaways. If you’re not yet a subscriber to my magazine, MaryJanesFarm, subscribe here for $19.95/year.
I am new to Mary Janes Farm, I love what I am reading and seeing, great ideas and creations! I look at the possibilities of what I can create more clearly now. I love being able to upcycle old into new it’s so exciting!!! My Dad was a carpenter ( he just passed away on October 23rd this year ) and he taught me the value of upclyling, he remade or re-purposed everything. I love looking at what you have created and it has given me great idea’s for new ways to change the old, Thank you for your inspirations!!!
I try to reuse old anythings – I try to give my creations away. I always get oohs and aahs back. My boomer friends haven’t seen some of the stuff I upcycle for years, since they were kids. It brings a smile to both our faces!!
We have a 40 acre alpaca farm in southern Maine, and the house and barn are over 2 centuries old. Although they have both been updated, it’s nice to have older pieces to tie-back to the ways things were when our home was first built on this hillside.
We use old artifacts as “set dressing” in our little farm store: an antique spinning wheel, a Lazy Kate made into a lamp, a cider press for displaying packages of alpaca roving, a drying rack for displaying scarves…
Ideas, inspiration,encouragement, all come from reading your magazine. I look forward to receiving it and finding time to read it from cover to cover. And then read them again. I’ve been a gardener all my life and enjoy your enthusiasm for sharing with others. Your seven ideas spread is a favorite!! Thanks, Sheila in Al
I have upcycled sweaters into new designs.
I have been upcycling and dumpster diving for years. Your magazine and ideas continue to inspire my creative juices to seek more to upcycle. My biggest problem is space to put all these wonderful ideas!
I bought an old iron headboard and grow peas up it in my veggie garden. Then bought a large old iron gate and used as a headboard in my tipi. I work too much to learn to sew or do all the projects I have “saved for later”, but still repurpose anything I can! Scour antique stores for old kitchen things…the kind that still work! I found an old cast iron dutch oven with hook, which is perfect for my locally made steel fire pit with built in grill and hook to hang it on!
I read your magazine monthly, have given two as gifts and received your book for a gift! I shopped at Mary Janes Farm Store in Coeur d’Alene all the time (love your bedding) until it moved. Hoping to one day make it to your amazing glamping site with my sisters and Mom for girls weekend!
I love adding upscale recycled truly loved finds to my patio garden and bedroom!
Dear Mary Jane,
Thank you for all the wonderful stories and pieces in your magazine. I have enjoyed it a lot. Also like you, I worked for the Forest Service here in Idaho. I worked for the Weiser Ranger District on the Payette NF for 27 years and retired New Year’s Eve 2014. I love reading your magazine and all the glamping and crafting ideas. Will you please enter me in the Junk Gypsy book giveaway. I love your magazine and so does my daughter in law. She gets my past months issues. 😁 Always, Linda Strain
Oh my goodness, I get endless inspiration from your magazine. Not only upcycling (my favorite project to date is turning an old door into our dining room table), but yummy recipes, leaving a,smaller footprint on our planet and just being an all around better person. Thank you for all the pleasute you put in our lives and also for the chance to win this fun book!
What a great idea to benefit the giver, receiver, and children with your Props for sale!
My favorite way to recycle is when I have a purse, jacket, dress or jewelry and someone compliments me on it, or says “I really, really, love that jacket…purse…whatever”, I just take it off and give it to them. It’s an old Native American custom and also a practice in Arab countries. People are so surprised and appreciative. Some have even contacted me years later about where the jacket is now, or how their friends couldn’t believe them! It all belongs to God anyway as far as I’m concerned. Now to go shopping for something funky and unique that I get to keep…for a while!
We hung 3 sections of a large old wind mill on our privacy fence, horizontal slats, as art. It came off the property, as the old water tower is still standing. We like a vintage look.
I’ve turned old cupboard doors into chalkboards and jewelry organizers!
I have used upcycling in my garden. An old mosaic ball helps decorate my garden and hold down my bean tripod. A headboard supports my grape vine.
I love love love your magazine!!! It first came to me years ago from a friend that knew I needed to find “me” again. It was just what I needed. There isn’t much I don’t up-cycle. I’ve become the joy of our friend who owns a very old ranch & his joy comes from finding things around the ranch that he can give me – at times to the bane of my husband haha – to haul “junk” home for me to reuse and make things from. Your magazine has inspired many of my friends & we have a great time finding things to bring back to life – often at friendly competitions, who found it first at yard sales etc!! lol – I try each year to pay it forward and give 3 gift subscriptions to women I feel need a little MaryJane in their lives. The world is full of wonderful history and things from the past have character – why by new when we can give things a new life with a wonderful new personality or purpose?!
I would love this book! I have been a subject for at least 4 years and love the magazine!! Carry it with me daily!!
Love MJF Magazine ..best of the best….Mary Roberts, Sister 921
Merry Christmas to all. 🎄🎼
I have a very small kitchen so I was trying to find ways to utilize my space better. I found a wire rack in the garage that had no purpose. After thinking that might work as a pot rack, I took a metal shelf from a broken down metal rack to use as well. We spray painted them black and hung them on the walls. Now I have more cupboard space and lots of pots on the wall. I love it!
I love to recycle old worn out things. i have a small chicken feeder herb garden, a ladder magazine rack and a ladder towel rack, a bench made from a bed frame, an old shutter used for drying herbs, and we recently recycled the wood and foundation rocks from an old tobacco barn at our farm into benches and a fire pit. Some of the old barn siding was made into towel racks for my daughter’s ocean-themed bathroom. ! I also made a collection of quotes painted on an old window with several glass panes. I love to create new pieces from something old. “If it’s Rusty, it’s Perfect!” I LOVE Mary Jane’s Farm and have purchased subscriptions for my friends and family! 🙂
Well you all do bring back the memories
Because I grew up in the second hand business…..my grandfather had a junk yard and was known as Trader Lee!!!
My uncles were also involved in the salvage business and my mother had an antique store…you would have been in Heaven!!! I have been collecting and junking for many years also!!! Love your ideas😘
I found some old pieces of lathe in the wood pile, nailed them together in the shape of a star, 36″ wide, put a string of lights on it and it’s on the outside of our old farmhouse welcoming people during the holidays. Its one of my favorite pieces!
I’ve taken books just old enough to have cool paper, but boring covers (think 1960s psychology books), ripped off the covers, stacked them up in differing sizes and wrapped them with bits of collected jute, ribbons saved over from presents, and little scraps of lace. I usually top them off with an abandoned bird nest I or a family member/friend has found. Sometimes I leave it empty, add a little bird, or line them with feathers I’ve found lying around. A little off-white string ball in the nest looks like a funny egg. Once Dad didn’t butcher the turkeys until late enough them started laying eggs, so I took a couple of their huge white red-speckled egges, and used a little blow tool to empty them out. They’re really fun to place in nests.
I live on a chewed up shoe-string so nearly every craft project I do involves ‘up-cycling’. Do we get our names put in the hat for every item we list? lol
I have used old work boots to be flower pots in the garden. These boots deserve a special spot for all the work they have put in on the farm!
I was inspired by the use of the key plates meg used on her trays . There is always something like that in every issue and it is enjoyable to use in a different purpose. Thanks ya all
My husband and I BOTH love recycling/repurposing. We have welded wreaths out of our horses’ old shoes, repurposed an old swingset into a saddle hoist set-up, used old windowed doors for photo displays, etc. My favorite and most challenging project is “in the works.” When my beautiful old upright piano could no longer be tuned, we dismantled it. I kept most of the workings and am figuring out how to make the “ebony and ivory” keys into a large sunburst mirror (a LOT of angles to figure out). Once that is complete, I think I’d like to figure out how to make the foot pedals into some sort of a manual door chime! I loved the old door knob hardware used for the tray rails in the Christmas issue… as well as the advice about “scruffy hospitality.” Thank You!!!
It’s not just junk that y’all have inspired me to recycle. I no longer can enter stores without looking at displays, signs, and any number of things and imagining how I would recycle/upcycle the pieces. I always forget things on my list because I’m too busy “mind recycling”.
I’ve mostly upcycled vintage clothing into garments that I wear but I am always on the lookout for an old trailer I can glamp! I, also, just love the lifestyle of making perserves and ferments! Superb!
My husband gives me Mary Jane Farm as a birthday present every year and sings “Happy Birthday” to me when a copy arrives 🙂 He says MJF has gotton him into more “trouble” as there is something in every issue I ask help in doing! He built the greenhouse for me (from 2 issues) from recycled fencing, 2x4s, and pvc pipe.
I recycled a pasta machine and now make spaghetti which he likes greatly.
Recycled old rake heads as tool holders.
And ultimately, I am being recycled in my ways of cooking, cleaning…just living life. Thank you Mary Jane for your magazine. We love it!
My husband and I use saw horses with 2 x4’s laid across to sit dog cages on. The cages have wooden slates inside for our chickens to roost on at night. For winter I cover them up with tarps for warmth. They stay safe in the cages at night inside a frame we built covered in chicken wire with a door that is also covered with tarps. The cages are high enough for easy cleaning and use bedding on the cage tray. We made small wooden ladders that they use to leave the cages. I have 33 chickens in 5 cages at the moment. I purchased a metal 10 nest box for laying eggs. Great setup!
Mary Jane’s Mag is a true inspiration…I just Love it! I am currently collecting materials from thrift stores to make farm girl & guy aprons from recycled curtains, sheets, shower curtains, lace curtains, etc. I also decided to make my own art canvasses using recycled shower curtains, chair covers, and curtains made from duck or 100% cotton. I also build my own frames from recycled wood, and prime canvasses with either gesso or joint compound from hardware store. I love the ingenuity of the junk gypsies and would love to read their book
I love to visit my local Habitat for Humanity as I never know what I’ll find. From vintage Christmas decorations, dishes, lighting and garden equipment. I bought a long wooden handle for a garden tool or shovel. I thought it would make a great hiking staff to use when walking the trails. I’m still in search of someone who does woodwork to make my dream come true. I currently live in an urban area, my heart loves the idea of rural living. I love Mary Jane’s Farm it sets my mind free.
I found an old dresser at goodwill that I (actually my husband with me explaining) upcycled into a cat litterbox area with storage for pet treats, leashes, food and “clean-up” baggies!
I used 2 old doors that were in my basement (gutted the walls/doors) & sanded, replaced one broken window with different stained pallet wood, the other window I painted with black chalk paint (wrote a verse on it after) hinged them together and use them to cover my water heater that sits in a corner of my basement. 🙂
I have been using pallets to make climbing toys and shelters for my backyard goats. So much fun!
I took a couple of rusty old tin hearts (cookie cutter style) and hung them from my kitchen window locks (2 drilled holes and a thin piece of rusty wire looped thru). Then I took my grandmothers old wooden rolling pin and laid the handles in the hearts. I might try hanging a doily over the rolling pin for the winter to see how it looks. I need to do another one in the adjacent window for balance but I’m working on it. I have 2 more hearts.
I learned a valuable tip from a handyman. I love to garden, but when the sun gets hot, I soon run out of steam too. He showed me how to build a portable base for a beach umbrella. Take a 5-gallon bucket, add a piece of pvc pipe, about 20″ long (you decide), tape the bottom closed with duct or masking tape, before placing in center of bucket. Tape an X across top to hold pvc in place. Mix a small amount of Quik-Crete concrete mix with water & add to bucket. Let set, then you can move your umbrella along as you work. Word to the wise–more concrete = more weight to move! Maybe this will help my glamping sisters. Oh, how I do wish that I had a trailer that I could use as an art studio…Love & Light to you all!
Pingback: Winners!!! Giveaways: All That Glitters | Raising Jane Journal
I love your books and your magazines. My husband and I have been upcycling for year. Give me a rustic door or rusty tool and the ideas start to swirl. I love junk gypsy and their creations. I would love to win their book. Thank you for the chance to win. 🙂
I love your magazine because it brings me back to childhood memories and reminds me to live more natural and to recycle whenever and where ever we can. Before tossing an item I stop and think if there are any other uses for it or maybe it can be upcycled to another who can get even more use out of it. I love to recycle and reuse things in other innovative ways.
My hubby, a cabinet maker, scoffed when I picked up battered old white cabinet doors from the roadside. Now, outfitted with silver hooks, they hang sideways topped by their curvy hinges. Holding a collection of reusable shopping bags, they are full of character and useful once again.
Took an old trunk and turned it into a planter to display my beautiful flowers all sumer long…love your magazine
Wine corks soaked in vodka make great fire starters
I get so much inspiration from pictures and colors. Your magazine is always such great eye candy for my creative brain! One of my favorite things is a futon frame- turned pot- rack I hung on my kitchen wall.
I picked up this magazine and I started my searching for treasures to make my decor more vintage.
Your tips and twists, and teasing ideas for keeping house and having fun are recycled over and over. Thank you.