Camper Renovation - Paint Chips and a Rainbow Door

The latest project has been Libby's rainbow door. I pondered all kinds of treatments for the interior door... from wallpapering pink flamingos to painting it. Then one day on Pinterest I saw some wall art made with paint chips and thought now that's an idea. So I started collecting a ton of paint chips.

Unfortunately this project did not work at all. I tried several ways to apply the paint chips and ended up with bad results. After paint chips I tried gluing on Washi tape stripes, but the changes in weather and humidity made it all wrinkle up, fall off and just look like crap. I've since ripped most of it off. Let's just keep these photos here as a memory of what could have been. Maybe I should just paint the door.

It looked good when I first put the strips of paper up...

The next morning it just looked awful. So I tried it again with different adhesive...

And the morning after that, the new ones fell off. So I ripped it off for the second time and tried Washi tape instead. 

I didn't feel like wasting time doing the whole door, just in case it fell through. So I left it like this to see how it would hold up. After our week long camping trip with the heat and a rain storm, the tape just peeled off, and bubbled up despite a coat of sealer. It looked terrible. I've since pulled it off and the door still needs to be taken care of.

Decorating and Packing the Camper

So it's been a year since we decided to move out of our house, sell our stuff, move in with my parents and renovate a vintage camper. I'm still very slowly decorating and trying to decide where to put stuff. Here are a few photos...

The storage under the wheel wells aren't the best for everything, but they're great for storing extra clothes, towels or deflated pool floats. 

Hanging shoe organizers work great for more than just shoes!

I really like having the vintage juice glasses displayed, but taking them down and packing them individually for travel has been a pain. At the moment they are not in the camper. 

I loved how these globes looked, but just like the juice glasses, I've found they are a pain to prep for travel. 

Camper Renovation - Ombre, Chevron and Dinos

I'm slowly decorating the camper, in the meantime we have gone camping for vacation. We had a great time at Possum Kingdom state park and Lake Whitney, Texas. For now here are a few pics of Libby's progress!

One of the original lights + an IKEA magnetic board to showcase prints. Oh and 3 itty bitty dinosaurs. 

My vintage blow fish print. I picked this up in an antique store and when I re-framed it I discovered it isn't a print but the cover of a cruise ship dinner menu from the 1960's.

Oh hey, here are some cinnamon rolls freshly baked in Libby's vintage gas turquoise oven! So cool. And I absolutely love my new camper kitchen. There's plenty of room for cooking.

New camper cushions!! I really like how the gray and white stripes turned out. And I'm totally crushing on these turquoise ombre and yellow chevron throw pillows! All sewn by my awesome mom. Thanks mom! Oh, and there's a peek of the yellow floor too.

Possum Kingdom and Lake Whitney - Camping Trip

The past week we went camping and it was all Texas lakes, sunburns, SUP and yummy food. We're talking roasted corn with lots of salt and butter, Snickers s'mores and slow cooker BBQ ribs. Oh and I totally made cinnamon rolls and pineapple upside down cake in my camper oven.

We camped out a couple of nights at Possum Kingdom State Park. One night it stormed like crazy and the rain poured every which way. If we weren't sure the camper was water tight, we are now. That camper was snug as a bug in the rug and dry as a bone. Good to know.

After Possum Kingdom we drove down to Cedron Creek at Lake Whitney. We spent a few nights there in blissful quiet before the rest of my family showed up for the family reunion. We had a great time.

Camper Renovation - Sewing, Beads and Fabric

So guess what - we took Libby camping! It took two weeks of intense work to get her "camp ready" and we had a lot of fun on the test run. There were a few things to fix or adjust but it went great. My mom was awesome and sewed our new camper cushions. My dad installed our new air conditioner and made sure the fridge wasn't going anywhere. Here's some photos of the cushion making madness...

I thought the cushions that came with our camper were great but since we made the bed bigger, we needed new cushions. We are pretty sure that the cushions were not original as the foam was just in too good of condition. 50 year old foam would have been all well... old, stinky, stained and/or grainy. They must have been made by some previous owners before my cousin bought the camper. 

Since our cushions make the bed I just had to add a layer of memory foam on top of each cushion. I ended up buying two memory foam mattress toppers in queen size (1.5" thick) and cut them up for the cushions. I also just used the foam from the original cushions (and added foam where needed.)

We closed up the backs of the cushions with velcro so that the covers could be removable and washable.

Just another one of my projects - this one is still a work in progress! My dad took the original chandelier and painted it white for me. Ok, I should say that I painted it white and made a huge mess of it. Then my dad exclaimed "didn't anyone teach you how to shoot paint?" and proceeded to sand blast it and repaint it. It looks great now. I have since been stringing different beads to hang on it. It's going to be filled with beads of all colors.

Cushion test run...

And here's just a little picture of our Libby at Tyler State Park.

Big Hair, Little Shorts and Super Cute Babies

I've spent a lot of time with my family lately. One evening we sat around my aunt's table pouring over old family photos. These photos made us laugh. They made us smile. And we laughed some more. There was plenty of big hair and little shorts. Super cute babies and way too much fun. I snagged a few with the promise to bring them back safely. Wanted to scan some of my favorites and share them with you.

My mom's family reunion, 1976 or 1977. My brother is the little boy on the bottom left in the blue and yellow shirt (hands on his chin.) My sister is the little girl in the flowered shirt just to the right of him. My mom is in the red shorts and tan shirt - towards the middle of the back row. Oh and there's my dad! He's two spots to the left of my mom in a navy shirt. Awww.

I love this picture so much. There's my grandma and grandpa in the middle, and see the girl on the bottom right with the banjo? My beautiful mom! Not to mention my awesome aunts, uncles and cousins.

On my mom's side of the family, Aunt P and Uncle D were the first to get a camper so everyone dubbed Aunt P the Camper Queen. It was a super cute brand new Williams Craft camper! I forgot to ask what year they got the camper. These two photos were taken in the 80's.

My aunt with her first born son. And just look at those cars in the background. 

Aunt P, on Christmas Day with her new bike. Check out that vintage camper of someone's in the background. Love the car too.

Remember when perms were the rage? I think everyone had a perm that year. p.s. nice shorts, cousin G.