Lockn Love ~ Rosi's Maiden Voyage

A couple of weeks ago, Rosi made her maiden voyage!  We took her to Lockn, a music festival in Arrington, VA.  Lockn is about an hour and a half from where we keep Rosi so it was a perfect first trip.  

We learned a couple of things along the way.  Most importantly, we need to look for a sway bar or stabilizer.  We had a little bit of craziness on the way there but were told if we purchase a sway bar, the ride will be much easier.  

We also did not have the piece we needed to hook up to the power.  Luckily,  someone camped next to us had an extra that he gave us.  We are going to purchase an extra or two to bring with us so that we can help out someone in the future.

The best thing we learned is that Rosi is the perfect festie vehicle.  We were so comfortable!  The AC was a life saver.  Electricity was awesome...loved having outside chandelier lights, a microwave to cook in, a fridge to keep our food cold & lights inside!  We met lots of great people who stopped by to check out Rosi.  I love Rosi even more after this trip than I did before if that is possible.

I am going to post pics of the outside of our camp in this post.  I'll save inside pics for the next post.  One thing that we enjoyed doing at Lockn was checking out other campers & RVs.  I got an idea for an outdoor kitchen that I am going to try to finish before our next festival...not quite as brand new or modern as the ones I saw, but cute and functional. Thanks for reading!

I nominated Rosi in a contest for best dressed at Lockn.  If you think she was well dressed, you can vote for her here.

https://fans.com/posts/15332

Crafty Creations

We have been crazy busy working to get Rosi ready for her first road trip!  We worked on her all day Saturday and Sunday...and I truly mean all day...I woke up just after 6 am, worked all day and was still sewing pillows at 2 in the morning on Saturday.  We had two main goals this weekend, to decorate and to seal the roof.

We did not finish the decorating phase yet so I will post photos when everything is in place but I thought I'd share some of the fun crafts I have made for Rosi over the last couple of months.  Rosi is like a giant craft project for me!

No boring switch plate covers for Rosi!  She deserves everything to be fun & fancy.  So I decided to print out pictures I found online and decoupage the switch plates.  I LOVE how these turned out!  The only bad thing is that some of these will not be visible once everything is set up...but that's okay because I know they are there.

Going with the fun and fancy idea, I knew I needed to do something to make Rosi's light fixture prettier.  I decided that every girl deserves a flower crown, including Rosi.  I gathered cedar pinecones which look like roses, spray-painted them different shades of pink and attached them to a wire wreath.  We put this up yesterday and realized that the pinecones would fall out if we hung it upside down.  I knew there had to be a solution so I got creative.  I wrapped the wreath with tulle to keep everything in place.  Hanging this was not easy and it still needs some tweaking to make it look just right.  But I am very happy that my boho, chic hippie chick will be wearing a flower crown to her first festival.

I found so many great pictures online that I decided I needed to find another use for them.  I had some small gold plastic frames that I had bought at a thrift store for a quarter a piece.  I spray painted these pink.  I put a picture in the frame and decoupaged a picture on the back of the frame.  I hung these from the fabric scrap curtains I made for Rosi.  It adds a fun detail!

I try to spend very little money on decorating Rosi & try to use what I have laying around the house.  I had some old t-shirts that were perfect colors and decided to use those.  I used a tie dye shirt to cover a pillow. 

Then, I looked on Pinterest for more craft ideas that you can create from t-shirts.  I found a couple of neat ideas.  I cut one long strip from a pink, blue and white shirt.  I braided these together and then made this into a basket. 

I also found a cool project making bags from old t-shirts.  I figure these will look good in Rosi and are practical.  We can use them for our groceries.

One of my very favorite projects I have made for Rosi is a rug made from t-shirts.  I cut small strips and latch hooked a rug.  It took a lot more strips than I had imagined so I ended up making a small rug perfect for in front of the sink.  I love it!

We have spent many weekends this summer working on Rosi's roof.  The previous owners covered the roof with heavy black roofing tar.  We were told that this should never be done to a camper.  It was recommended that we remove the tar and seal it with a plastic covering.  Definitely MUCH easier said than done!  We scraped and scraped and scraped some more trying to remove the tar.  It was a very long, boring, hot and blister creating process which we are happy to have behind us.  Yesterday, we were finally able to apply the plastic covering and to finish the roof!

I hope to be finished decorating Rosi on Wednesday morning...just in time for Rosi's first music festival!  I will post pictures so you can see how it all came together.  I will always have projects I am dreaming of for Rosi, but I am pretty pleased with how she looks for her first adventure!   

Pretty In Pink

I haven't posted in a while now because we were not finished with any projects...in the middle of quite a few, but not finished.  I am very happy to say that we completed a big project and that Rosi is now painted!  

We have been very busy this summer with concerts, festivals and fun!  The few weekends we have had any free time were stormy.  There were several times that we had planned to paint Rosi but we would end up with stormy weather and have to postpone it.

The weather finally cooperated and we were able to paint.  We started by priming the sides.  We then painted 2 coats of a lighter pink on the top.  Next, we painted a darker shade of pink on the bottom.  

I am so happy with how it turned out!  Rosi is now outfitted in two beautiful shades of pink.  She will definitely stand out at festivals amid a sea of beige campers!  This weekend we have a bunch of projects we hope to finish before our first adventure...Lockn...can't wait!

Stunning Stickers

I got a chance to go out and work on Rosi a bit this weekend.  I was really looking forward to this project...putting Rosi's stickers on the wall!

My husband and I have both received stickers over the past couple of months as gifts.  We have been saving them to put up until the painting was finished.  Painting is done, so now I get to have some fun!

 

I decided to group the stickers by color.  I put stickers with pink or turquoise on the pantry door, silvers and grays on the fridge and reds and blues by the bed.  I figured it would look less busy grouping them this way.  

I left room to add more stickers to our collection...I am looking forward to picking some up on our future travels.  I love how it turned out!

A Weekend Full of Projects

 

What fun I had working on Rosi this weekend!  It has been a while since we were able to get out to Rosi so I had a list of projects I was hoping to get done...and I was able to complete all of them!  Three of the projects were fun ones that I was looking forward to and there was one that I was not really looking forward to...giving everything inside another coat of paint.  I am so glad I got the painting done.  She looks SO much better inside with the paint touched up!  

 

The project I started with this weekend was prettying up Rosi's countertop.  When we bought her, she had a white laminate countertop.  It was not totally glued down and was bubbling up.  The trim was beat up and did not go around the entire counter.  It really bothered me!

I bought some pretty iridescent tiles a couple of years ago and never used them.  I had just enough to cover the counter and go around the side as a sort of trim.  I also had some white grout left over from a mosaic project.  I decided white was just too plain for Rosi so I mixed some food color in the water I used to mix the grout.  I was able to create a pale turquoise grout...turns out it almost perfectly matches the wall.  

I absolutely love the new countertop.  Rosi deserves pretty, shiny, sparkly things & I definitely gave her that in the new countertop!

The next project I tackled was making our medicine cabinet more unique.  Years ago, we bought a new medicine cabinet on clearance from Lowes for a couple of dollars.  We never used it.  My husband found it in his shed still in its original box.  It fit perfectly over the stove.  We installed this a while back. 

The cabinet was plain white laminate...kind of plain and boring.  Well, Rosi needs unique items, not something run of the mill.  I decided to decoupage some of our old ticket stubs on the outside and inside.  Friends suggested I photocopy the stubs so I could keep the originals.  I am glad I followed their advice as the paper was thinner than the original tickets and worked very well.  I love looking at the old tickets and remembering old shows.  I think this project gives Rosi a bit of a hippie feel which is perfect as we plan to bring Rosi to lots of music festivals in the years to come!

The last project was a fun no sew curtain.  I found some old pink fabric scraps I had laying around and tore them as well as some new pink fabric I purchased into thin pieces.  Next I cut a branch off of one of my Crape Myrtles to serve as the curtain rod.  I tied the fabric to the branch.  I looked around the house to see if I had something I could hang the branch from.  I found silver screen door knobs.  They worked perfectly!  I love my new cute little curtain.

 

I am so pleased with how Rosi is coming along!  The next big project I plan to tackle is redoing the floor...I envision pink glitter floor.  Now I have to figure out how to make that happen!  I love Rosi more and more all the time!           



Sparkle & Shine

My husband and I were able to go out to Rosi and work on her a bit this past weekend.  Every time I see her & spend time in her, I love her even more!

This weekend's project was one of my favorite projects yet!  I updated one of Rosi's  light fixtures.  I really like the fact that Rosi still has some of her original fixtures & that everything works.  The previous owner was an electrician.  He updated all of the electrical and wiring which is great as that was one project we knew we would have to hire out. 

 

Above the sink, there was a simple silver light fixture.  Rosi needs something chic, sparkly & boho, not something simple.  I had two chandeliers from my old house that I was saving in case I wanted to use them in our new house.  After a year and a half, it is obvious that I just do not have a need for them.  I took all of the crystals off to use for my project and donated the fixtures to the Salvation Army where I imagine they will become someone's fun project for their house.  I also had a candle chandelier on my front porch.  Some of the pieces were rusting and falling off so I saved those crystals to use as well.

These crystals certainly would have given Rosi the sparkle I was looking for but not the boho, hippie feel.  I decided to have a custom beaded chain made for Rosi by Kay Adams at Anthill Antiques, my very favorite store in the world!  I let Kay know what colors I was looking for and she created a beautiful colorful chain for me with a pink, turquoise, clear & silver color scheme.

Before I even started this project, I draped a beaded necklace over the fixture to see if I liked the general concept I had or not.  I decided this definitely had potential, so I started to work on it.  I attached the crystals to the fixture first.  I then separated the chain into pieces of varying lengths adding crystals to the end of some and leaving others just beads.  I kept one section of beads longer and added a sparkly pink bangle that my sister in law had given me as a gift and attached this to the pull.  I LOVE the finished product! 

It was perfect timing for me to have completed the chandelier...I consider it a chandelier, my husband disagrees.  I had contacted a Facebook friend who makes stained glass.  I asked her to create a custom piece of stained glass for Rosi that I could give to my husband as a Valentine's Day gift.  She made a beautiful piece for us and brought it out to us this weekend.  I wanted a rose and a connection to the Grateful Dead (the bolt) as her name Ramblin Rose comes from a Dead song.  This piece is absolutely perfect!  Thank you Maggie!

I had ordered the stained glass a size that could be hung in front of the window above the sink.  We want to be able to open that window to allow for air flow.  We will attach it from all four corners once we frame out the window...we hung it temporarily for now as we couldn't wait to see it up!  I also ordered sticker lettering of the quote "I love you more than words can tell" as part of my husbands gift.  I will attach this to the wall just above the window once all of the painting is complete.

Rosi is starting to slowly look in reality the way she looks in my head...like a boho hippie goddess!

Fun with Rosi

We keep Rosi about an hour away from our house so I do not get to work on her or just hang out in her nearly as much as I'd like to.  I did get out to see her & work on her a bit a couple times recently...every time I see her, I love her more!  I am slowly transforming her into the hippie chic, boho festival goddess I know she can & soon will be!

Unfortunately, I cannot do a lot of the things needed to fix her up right now because of the cold weather so I decided to go "shopping" in my house for her.  I went through my house looking for things that would be put to better use in Rosi.  I gathered all of my findings & all of the new stuff I had for her & put it all inside & imagined what she will look this spring.

I made & installed pink curtains for a couple of her windows.  I love how the pink pops against all of the turquoise!  I also prettied up her broom...she deserves something prettier than your average broom.  

One of the things I like about Rosi is that she is the perfect place for me to try out ideas and crafts I see on Pinterest!  I made a box out of her old license plate.  This was much harder than it looked but I do really like the results. It is the perfect size for a sponge or two.

I am really looking forward to warmer weather so I can start painting her...I am dreaming of a pink & silver exterior & pink glitter flooring...I can't wait💗