Who Needs Hickory Farms?

Not that I have anything against Hickory Farms ... let's get that right out there up front.  For Christmas, everyone on my husband's side of the family gets gift cards or money.  Boring right?  So we like to have another something they can open just as an extra.  Being that there are 5 guys, we decided to go the sausage/cheese/cracker route.  Well, when we looked at the prices of Hickory Farms we had an AH-HA moment and decided to do it ourselves.

Enter Walmart.  I have a love/hate relationship with Walmart ... love that you can get a ton of stuff at fairly decent prices, hate that my blood pressure shoots up the minute I walk through the doors.  Ah well, the price of being thrifty I guess. 

Anyway, hubby put these boxes together tonight ... for much less than we'd have paid at the mall and they're getting a bunch more stuff.

Cost Breakdown Per Box:

Box - 50 cents (2 x 1$ at the dollar store)
Tissue Crinkle - 50 cents (got 2 out of a $1 bag)
Crackers - $1.48 x 2 = $2.96 
Hummus - $2.98 (not sure what hummus is but hubby thought it sounded good)
Summer Sausage - $3.98
Beef Sausage - $4.98
Marbled Cheddar Cheese - $2.18
Pepper Jack Cheese - $2.18
Sharp Cheddar Cheese - $2.98
Muenster Cheese - $2.18

Total = $25.42

PS:  The women are getting knitted dishcloth/soap sack sets with handmade soap and boxes of chocolate.

I've Been Working on The Curtains ...

... all the weekend long.  I've got 4 more panels to go and I only have enough fabric for 1 so had to order some more from fabric.com.  Glad I have gift certificates that I got in a trade for yarn that I wasn't going to use.  I love Ravelry.com. (The knitting/crocheting site I hang out at.)

I picked up the little rowboat shelf at Goodwill for $4 which I thought was an excellent deal.  It's also got a paddle and a fishing rod (wood) but haven't decided what I'm going to do with those.  It holds the old Girl Scout manuals and some other books perfectly.  The Cadette cap is on a hat stand my father-in-law made me and I think it works perfectly.

We need to work on getting the plumbing fixed up in the kitchen ... we need to hook up the water lines to the tank and to the outside water faucet and put the faucets back in place.  The only things left to do after the plumbing is taken care of are all cosmetic, some little decorating touches, cleaning windows and windowsills as well as getting the outside painted. 

I'm really glad my husband was able to fit the camper in the garage.  It makes it so much easier to hang curtains, etc. when all I have to do is step inside the garage.  I'm still amazed that he was able to get it inside the garage horizontally along the back wall and still leave us enough room for our 2 vehicles.  Shasta sure did something right when they built the LoFlyte models. 

Vintage Train Case Makeover

Finally finished revamping the old Samsonite train case I got at Salvation Army.  I had originally done this with Girl Scout stuff but hated the way it looked so I ripped all that decoupage off the case, cleaned it and sprayed it with Rustoleum vinyl spray paint.  That stuff is amazing by the way.  I used it in the camper to spray the old vinyl seats to refresh them and it worked like a charm! 

I decided to use pages from the book Wonders of Nature with illustrations by Eloise Wilkin ... I adore her drawings ... they're just so wonderful.  Got the book at a thrift store and had no problems cutting it up.  It was a big Golden book so the pictures were oversize.

Decoupaged them on the case with Mod Podge and when it warms up enough (probably not till spring unless we're lucky), I'll spray the whole outside with a spray sealer.

The inside of the case was okay but had some stains and smelled like old cosmetics so I ripped all of that out, traced around the outside of the case on a piece of foam board and cut inside the lines by about 1/4 inch.  I covered the 2 pieces with avocado green fabric I had around the house and hot glued it in place.  Then I hot glued upholstery fabric around the inside sides ... it's a burgundy with avocado green diamonds so it matches the green.  If I had been smart, I'd have done the whole case in the upholstery fabric but it's fine so I'm not going to worry about it.

So I now have a new train case to use for whatever I decide.  :)

Fun Vintage Finds!

I saw one of these plaid Skotch Koolers in Salvation Army a few months ago but it was $10 so I passed.  Then I found out when I went on my sisters on the fly outing that $10 was a fairly decent price so I was kicking myself because it would look really cute displayed in my camper.  Well, there are several on ebay but I didn't want one bad enough to pay the price + $12+ for shipping so I kind of blew it off.

Today I went to an auction ... it was cold, it started raining BUT I got a Skotch Kooler and this cute BBQ tray for $1!!! 

I think the tray is just adorable and I love the cooler, rust and all.  It will look cute displayed with my vintage Girl Scout and camping stuff, don't you think?  Sometimes waiting is all it takes!

Hey that's my fabric!

Looking through these calendars while decoupaging the traincase I found "my" curtain fabric in September 1962.  How funny!  Of course, mine's a reproduction but still it's kind of fun!

Let the decorating begin!

FINALLY!  Hubby got the LoFlyte painted inside and I'm itching to decorate!  Hung my first official decoration up and now I'm ready to go.  I went thrifting for camper stuff and found some tin stars at Salvation Army for cheap.  I repainted them with Army Green Rustoleum spray paint (I have a fascination with spray paint, always have ... hubby used to say "if it sits still for a minute, you'll probably paint it") and I think they look pretty cute. 

I also snagged some cute Lincoln Beautyware canisters at the same thrift.  Figured I could spray paint them green and use them to store non-food items.  Well first thing was to get them clean so I stuck them in the dishwasher.  Yikes!  Apparently someone before me had the brilliant idea to spray paint them and the paint melted into clumps all over the originally harvest gold canisters.  So I'm now scraping paint down to the aluminum in order to spray paint them.  Worth the work?  Probably not but they're cute and I'm persistent!

I also bought a stack of old Girl Scout calendars off eBay and plan to use them to decoupage the round train case I purchased for more storage. 

Lastly, while still on a spray paint kick, I purchased some Rustoleum vinyl and upholstery paint (did you know they made that?  I didn't!) and sprayed the 2 bench seats next to the bed and the bed guard for the bunk bed that we're going to use as a shelf.  The vinyl was pretty faded and dingy and I went with the sand color (basic beige) which has really freshened them up.  I love spray paint!

Let the light shine in ...

Well the inside is about 1/2 painted ... using Valspar Barcelona White which is quite a bit more yellow than white ... maybe it's "cream" as hubby calls it.  Anyway, it looks so fresh and clean inside.  We're using a semi-gloss so that should help brighten it up even more.  One thing I have to give Shasta credit for is the amount of light inside their old campers.  The LoFlyte has panoramic windows in the dining area (meaning a huge set of windows across the front and one behind each seat) and a total of 7 window sections in a 12-foot living space.  Front and back windows go nearly the width of the camper.  There is a big section of windows in the kitchen area (this section goes from in front of the sink to behind the dinette seat on the street side of the camper).  There are windows on each side of the front dinette (behind the seats) and windows on each side of the couch/bed area plus a tiny little window on top.  With the front door open and the screen door allowing more light inside, it's open and airy and completely non-cavelike.

While I absolutely adore the cute little canned hams, I've been inside a couple and they seem dark and dreary.  I'm falling more in love with this LoFlyte by the day.  So anyway, with the paint on the walls, I decided to put up one of the sets of curtains I've made (still working on the rest).  It's a perfect match ... I had a choice of going with ivory or beige and decided to listen to my daughter and go with beige.  I'm so glad I did.  I think they look great. 

Now I just have to get the rest of the interior painted, the cabinet hardware put back, the bench seats and bed screwed back into place and the shelf section across the back re-trimmed and I'll be ready to start decorating.  I can't wait!