Miniature Camper Ornament

 Good morning friends!  Well let me just tell you... this was a fun one to make!  My vintage camper is slightly bigger than the rest of the bird house ornaments for my tree but I love it all the same.  Plus I didn't actually make a separate hole for a bird to get in to.  But somehow there are eggs inside!  

Let's get to it shall we??

I traced an old plastic egg container to get the shape that I wanted onto chip board.  Initially there was not going to be a cut out for the door.  If I had thought about doing a screen door I would have cut it out before I glued it together.  But, sometimes plans change as you go and that's ok!

I used corrugated cardboard for the outside to give it ridges.  Luckily, I found a piece in my stash that just peeled right off. 

I simply used printed paper from the craft store for the walls and floor.

Can I just say how in love with this screen door that I am???

Also, these fabric clips are extremely handy!

These are the louvered windows, and I have to say that I wish I had used the under, less shiny side of the aluminum foil.  Too late now!

Underside details and construction don't really matter when you're not going to see it.

I didn't really show the ceiling planks in detail.  I cut pieces of cereal box and painted them.  Then applied my favorite rose napkins using Mod Podge.

The flamingo pictures I printed from Pinterest then made the frames.  

You can see my tutorial for easy frames HERE.  

I made the little cabinet similar to when I made the Apothecary Boxes.  

You can find that tutorial HERE.

All of my bird houses for my All Bird Christmas Tree have special eggs.  They are simply aluminum foil and air dry clay.

I painted a little rug made from drop cloth and added some tiny seashells and a pretty jewel for added shine.

At this point in construction, I asked my husband if he would like to see the inside of the camper before I closed her up forever.  Like a good boy he said yes :)  He also suggested adding some turf which got me thinking in a different direction about the base of the camper.  

All closed up!

I bought some faux turf from the Christmas ornament section at Walmart a few years ago.  I simply glued it down to a piece of chip board for my base.

The wheels are made from the inside of Scotch tape.  I lucked up and cut it just perfectly the first-time using garden scissors.  You can also see the string that I painted and used as trim on the outside edges.

I painted them with chalk paint just so the black paint would cover well.  I also made them some hub caps from cardboard.

And since I had flamingos on the inside, I felt I needed some on the outside!

Their necks turned out a little rough but I love them!

The little chair I made similar to my vintage lawn chair post HERE.

I added a step and trailer hitch and glued her down to the turf.  The chair looks incredibly crooked in the pic... and maybe it is!  :)

Here's a look at the hitch.  The wheel is a button and a hole punched piece of cardstock as the center.

Here is a back view.  You can see the hole where you insert a Christmas light.

I also used rhinestones for the brake lights and side lights.

This is the view of the inside with a Christmas light sticking through the back.  You can see a lot better when it's dark, but I seem to not be able to remember to take pics at that time of day.

And that's her folks!  My cutie vintage camper ornament for my Bird Tree!

I just love this one!!!

Thanks for stopping by today!  

XOXO ~Laurie

be a happy camper

As I was making my list of things our little camper (me) needs or wants I felt I would share with you.  I am so excited to hit the road on our weekend get-a-ways this year in our Scotty.  Now that the new curtains are made and I found a clothespin bag that I made that just happens to match I feel I am closer to being ready to go.  Although there are these few things I will pick up before our trip.

1 ~ A dish drainer!  I am an outside dish washing gal and I really don't mind but a dish drainer would be nice.  Preferably metal since I have to carry the dishes back to the camper.  We have a kitchen sink but haven't worked out the kinks in the camper water system.  Truthfully I've never camped when I didn't have to wash dishes outside unless we were camping with someone else.  Oddly enough I kind of like it.

2 ~ A small cutting board to live in the camper.  I took along a flexible one from the kitchen and would like something a bit sturdier to take along.  A nice avocado green or harvest gold would blend in with our eighties camper decor.

3 ~ I need a new folding lounge chair.  I bought one from Granny's friend Dorthy's yard sale and used it for two whole summers until I backed over it with the Arctic Cat... woops.  But I do miss Shaun pulling in the driveway after work to find me laid back with a cold one in my hand and a chicken on my lap... that is what the rich folks do isn't it?  Besides, one is supposed to put their feet up on vacation right?!

4 & 5 ~ OK thanks to Mary Jane Butters and her Glamping book, I found out that they make toilet seats for 5 gallon buckets AND bags to go in them that are basically like going to a port-a-potty.  Not that I enjoy doing that, but like I said about the water... it includes the toilet that's in the camper.  So it's off to the bath house for us which I really don't mind until it's the middle of the night.  THEN these two items would come in very handy (outside of sneaking behind a tree).  Although I could just pack in one of my many enamelware shit buckets with the lid.  May be awkward to squat on though and I probably wouldn't feel the same about using it to tote beer in. 

6 ~ And finally I feel an oscillating fan is in order.  Especially since we have no air conditioning which will probably change this summer or before the next time we go camping after this time because it will be much hotter.  When I think of hot campers and fans I think about Sissy in Urban Cowboy waking up in Wes Hightower's camper, in Texas, in the summer, with no shade trees, no a/c and a small room fan blowing her hair.  Bless her heart.  If she can do it, I can do it... just not right next to a parking lot outside Gilley's in Texas.  

HERE's where we took our Scotty camping for the first time last fall.  

And P.S. the Vista Sophisticate will be sporting a new set of tires this time AND a new horn!  Look out!!!

Meet Our Scotty

I am tickled to death to show you our new camper!!!  We've been spying small campers here and there on the internet for some time now.  We had to bury our last one, which was a slide-in truck bed camper on a trailer, because it had pretty much rotted... poor thing.  That was more than four years ago.  Since then, we've stayed in friend's campers and even camped in Black Rose a time or two.  But a couple of weeks ago, I finally spied one that turned out to be right down our alley.  It was an early morning at the DC and I was eating my breakfast and searching on craigslist when I found our Scotty.  We couldn't go look at it until after work and at the price it was listed at I knew there would be no way it would still be for sale.  So my sister suggested we ask her husband if he would be in the area of the camper and he luckily said he would go check it out for us.  Lucky for us that he did because a few hours later Scotty was parked outside the day care!

It is a 1987 Scotty, 16 foot trailer/13 foot camper that sleeps four, with a bathroom, kitchen sink and cook top with refrigerator and heater.  The man selling it said he didn't think it had been camped in over twelve times and had been stored inside it's entire life.  We got an awesome deal y'all.  I can't wait to share with you our weekend adventures in our new '87 Scotty camper!

These pictures were taken right when we got it.  I hadn't cleaned it up yet but didn't really have to do much.  It is in excellent shape.