We are delighted to introduce our first-ever Brand Ambassador, Stacie Gilmore!
After an open call, many wonderful submissions, a terrific Top 12 and a community vote, Stacie’s radiant personality, vibrant home and resourceful and creative ideas took the prize! Join us each issue this year for Stacie’s column and join us on Instagram @fleamarketdecor where Stacie will share more inspiration from Alabama.
Hi Flea Market Décor Friends!
I am Stacie Gilmore, and I am beyond excited to be your first ever Flea Market Décor Magazine Brand Ambassador. I am thrilled to be able to share with you my home as well as DIY projects, thrifting, and decorating adventures in 2026.
I live in the beautiful state of Alabama with my husband and two boys. They are saints to always support my projects, parties, and decorating capers to help my ideas come to life. They know a little DIY project might mean sawdust and paint on the table for the next week. My boys both bass fish competitively – one in high school and one at the collegiate level, so they keep us busy. I am in my 27th year as a 7th grade Science teacher at a large public middle school outside Birmingham. I love my sweet students and amazing school.
Our home is a 1970s cedar-siding rustic cabin with a fabulous den meant for entertaining. We have done various projects here over the years, from replacing the shag carpet with wood floors to painting and tile work. The large front porch is my favorite and is themed around the red front door and vintage red metal glider and chairs. It provides the perfect spot to sip coffee or enjoy a glass of wine. Most everything inside is inherited or second-hand from a flea market, thrift store, eBay, or an antique store. The kitchen island is an old store display shelf with a barn wood top that has casters added to the bottom. My dining room table, cane back chairs, and china cabinet were my grandparents. The camp bar is a chest of drawers from my husband’s family, the boys’ poster beds and furniture are antiques from our family as well. I have two fabulous old boats as decor – one a canoe and one a wooden boat that were given to me by friends who found them at properties they bought. I love it when someone calls and says, “I saw this and said, Stacie will want this.”
During the lockdown in 2020, we began fixing up an amazing river cabin on the Coosa River about an hour and a half from our home. The cabin named “Potluck Cabin” by my husband’s Uncle Bo, and next door to his own log cabin, is a fabulous 1950s fishing camp. The name is perfect because between the food served and the décor you never know what you are going to get, but it is always good. The rooms are all pine floors, ceilings, and walls. I have found so much joy in filling it with my flea market and thrifted finds to make it like an authentic river cabin from its original era. Vintage water skis, life jackets, paddles, rugs, and artwork make it my favorite getaway spot. My turntable pours out the familiar rhythms of Credence Clearwater Revival, and I imagine all the fun weekends that must have taken place there over the last seven decades.
My style is a mix of rustic camp house style and vibrant colors and vintage collections. I love repurposing vintage items like an army trunk with feet added as a coffee table, suitcases and thermoses for storage, camp blankets as curtains, and Christmas stockings. My collections are on display, and my rules are to buy what you love and what makes you happy and brings all those nostalgic feels.
One of my favorite collections is my jadeite glassware. I have been collecting the beautiful mint green pieces for the past fifteen years. Jadeite is so fun to mix with vintage Halloween and Christmas décor, so my jadeite hutch is usually the first place I decorate for a new season. My other collections include vintage planters, racquets, pennants, varsity letters, paint by numbers, glassware, thermoses, coolers, paddles, lanterns, camp blankets, decanters, souvenir glasses, and I’m sure there are a few more I am forgetting!
Creating DIY projects is another passion of mine. I love to make vintage-inspired pieces as well as repurposed projects. I created crosses and Alabama state art a few years back and sold them at local shops in Birmingham. They were made from local salvaged schools and buildings out of beadboard, corbels, and vintage hardware. I made and sold over 150 pieces. I loved that each was unique and included some pieces of local history, people loved getting a cross made from the stairwell pieces of the elementary school or library they went to as a child.
I am a vintage Christmas enthusiast. I don’t even recall when it started, I guess when I inherited some of my grandmother’s Shiny Brite ornaments and my dad’s vintage Rushton Santa. I was allowed to go through the items that were left over from a family member’s estate when I was a newlywed. I didn’t really have any Christmas décor of my own, and the collection of Santa mugs and a few small Santa blow molds from the ‘50s were in a donation pile. I took them home, and the rest is history. I have so much fun mixing all the vintage pieces with my camp items to create a cool mix of nostalgia meets rustic. I can’t wait to share my Christmas collections and holiday decorating ideas with all of you!
I can’t finish my first article for Flea Market Décor Magazine without mentioning Flea Markets. I grew up going to flea markets and yard sales with my family on Saturday mornings. My dad would bring home vintage Edison records, old tools, and vintage books and photos. The thrill of the hunt and never knowing what you might find still excites me to this day! Most of the paintings in my house came from the awesome Birmingham Flea Market that used to operate monthly at the fairgrounds. I hope to visit Brimfield and the Brooklyn Flea soon. The flea markets really inspire me, and I come home with new visions and ideas for repurposed and vintage projects.
I am so excited about the upcoming year and being able to share what I love with all of you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart (and my overflowing attic) for all your votes and faith in me for this position.
With love from Alabama,
Stacie Gilmore
To see more of Stacie’s home and creativity visit @campgilmore on Instagram.
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