I hope you had a fabulous weekend...I know I did!
As many of you know, we recently bought an old pop-up camper and decided it needed a little love (not everyone is down for fake wood and a rainbow of country mauves and blues.)
Today, I wanted to show you some updated pics! I spent most of last week at my sewing machine making her new curtains, pillows and covering the ugly cushions.
In total, I made 8 pillows, 9 curtains and recovered 6 cushions...I don't think I have sewed this much in my entire life. Lol.
Oh...did I mention her name was Betty? Why Betty? Well, my sister (who we are traveling with in a few weeks) is redoing her camper as well and we wanted their names to be "related" somehow. We thought about starlets or maybe Wilma and Bett or Starlight/Starbright, but eventually we landed on: BETTY AND VERONICA!! It's actually pretty perfect for our personalities and the looks of our campers.
Wanna see?
I fell in love with this big stripe because it felt like the old changing "tents" that you used to find at beaches back in the day. The stripes, coral pattern and anchor pattern materials all came from Hobby Lobby. The navy blue sailboat and the cushion fabric both came from Hancock in the Home Decor Section.
Wanna money saving tip?! For pillows, don't buy pillow inserts! They can cost anywhere from $8-$15 each. Instead, go to your local thrift store and buy ugly throw pillows (the uglier they are the cheaper they are and the funnier looks you'll get at check out! Haha!) throw them in your dryer on the sanitize cycle (or high heat if you don't have a fancy dryer.) Then simply cover your pillows for a fraction of the cost. My 8 pillows cost a whopping $16 at my local thrift store.
You can see on the top of this curtain, I added a strip of the cushion fabric to the too. I did this for 2 reasons: (1) it ties the whole thing together and (2) my striped fabric was about 10in too short for the length I needed and I was not about to try to line up all those stripes to add more of the same fabric!
We painted 2 coats of Valspar primer and paint all in one over the ugly faux wood. We chose the outdoor version since the camper will have to endure temperature changes. The white REALLY brightens the whole thing up and is a really cheap and simple change. We bought just a quart and didn't even use the whole thing.
I love how my brighter colors POP of my darker cushions. Plus...better for stains!
If you're thinking about Glamping (glamour + camping) here's a few money saving tips we've found along the way!
(1) like I said above...instead of buying new pillow inserts, buy used throw pillows at your local thrift store and recover to match. Just remember to check them closely for scary stains and santize them in your dryer.
(2) remember your space is small. You might be used to buying gallons of paint, but 1 quart is more than enough for your little space.
(3) Check what you have in hand already! We all have gallons of paint leftover from various projects. You might have what you need sitting your garage right now. We painted the vent covers gray (sorry no pics of them!) using a gray spray paint we already owned. (We learned this lesson the hard way...we totally had paint sitting in our garage that we could have used!)
(4) Check your local Habitat for Humanity Restore or other similar charity store that specializes in home products. We were looking at new handles (we needed 8) at a big box home improvement store and the ones we liked were $3-$5 each. Uummm....no. My hubby went to our local Restore and found them for $1 each. Much better right?
(5) don't forget the coupons on the fabrics! Hancock Fabrics has coupons and sales through their website and in print, while JoAnn's and Hobby Lobby both have apps. Look closely though...usually the coupon can only be used on one "cut" of fabric, so it might require multiple trips or a helper to go through a different line to get the savings.
(6) When it comes to fabric, spend a little more for your cushion fabric. It's gonna get a lot of use. For pillows and curtains, a canvas or duck cloth works great because it's sturdy, but not too expensive.
So there you go....Betty is about 80% done. I can't wait to show you the finished project and the pics of her in action in just a little under 2 weeks.
Have an awesome day and remember...make your art intentional...not an after thought.
Xoxo,
Keri
