New Studio Tour

 Hello! I moved into a new studio this summer and I can't wait to show you some photos. But let me back track a bit....(read and see the rest here)

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New Camper Kits and Pattern

Hey, Hey! Lot's of folks are at Quilt Market this weekend, but I'm here chugging away in the studio instead. Wish I could see all of the fun and new stuff at market, but I will watch on Instagram this time.

Even though I won't be at market this spring, I do have new products debuting there without me. My Happy Camper Pin Cushion Kit is flying off the shelves, actually the kits never make it to the shelves, I fill them and they pretty much go out the door in orders. It's been busy here in the studio and I am not complaining one bit! I felt like Happy needed a few friends to glamp with so please meet Kitschy and Little Sunshine. 

 

Little Sunshine has felt wings

Kitschy has her own flamingoes out front

Here's Happy just in case you can't decide who you like best

You can make all three and have your own little trailer park next to your sewing machine. That's what I have done.

And while were talking campers, the Happy Camper Bag Sewing Pattern is now available as a paper pattern. You can find it here in my shop.

Have a great day!

Jennifer

                                   

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Vintage Travel Trailer Renovation Updates

Hello, I'm back with more camper updates. Things are moving along quite nicely with my camper. I still don't have a name, I keep wanting to call him Sunny though. I don't know why I think my camper is a him, especially when it will most likely be decked out in flowers. Time will tell on the name.

But anyway, we were up in Indiana visiting family a few weeks ago and it just happens that my home town of Kokomo, IN is a hop, skip, and a jump from Peru, IN. And what's in Peru, you ask? It's like the mega store for vintage camper parts. I've shopped online with vintagecampers.com but there online store is nothing compared to their actual business. 

The picture above is on their lot, they restore vintage Spartans and Airstreams. They have a giant old house filled with room after room of camper parts. I have to admit, if it weren't for Beth taking Nik and I through I would have been a bit scared of the old place. The cellar is where they kept their windows, the hallways was full of doors, another room full of lights, file cabinets were filled with handles and knobs, it was unbelievable. 

I got a window that will go in the kitchen where the air conditioning is now. And I found the perfect table! It was meant to be. I really wanted a white and gold glitter flecked table like my old one in the Scotty. I have only seen 1 table online for sale and it was too small. I was in search of a large table. Since I will be painting and crafting in the camper, I wanted it as big as would fit. They had two tables at the store and one was a perfect match. It's 30" x 36" and look at those gold glitter specks, just like Lucy had. 

Right now it sits in my studio but soon it will be in the camper.

As for the actual campers progress, I have a floor! The back end was gone when I purchased it, so I have been spending my time building supports and getting it anchored back on the base. 

This weekend I was able to put down aluminum flashing. I caulked all of the seams and then laid down 2 x 4's. 

The last thing I did Sunday evening, was install a 3/4" plywood floor. Eventually flooring will go over the top of this, but what will go down is undecided at this point.

So yay! half of my camper is sturdy. Now on to the other, not so sturdy half.

Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the other half of the camper floor will now need to be prepared. You can't tell in this picture, but the counter and cabinets slant to each side pretty badly, it's because the corners are rotted. I'll start digging around this weekend and let you know what happens.

This is what the floor looked like when you step in the camper. 

I pulled it up to find this.

I got out all of the rotted wood. The metal flashing is salvageable.

Heres the old propane heater, it will stay because I can't bother taking it out, but I would never dare use it. I'll stick with an electric space heater if I need one. 

While I was up in Indiana I got to hit up a few of my favorite antique places as well. I scored some Pyrex dishes and a few Bakelite items.

I might have hit on a color scheme in the process of buying up goodies.

My instagram is JenniferJangles if you want to see how the vintage camper is coming on the weekends when I work on it.

Have a great day,

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Vintage Camper Re Do, Take 2

Hi! If you've been following me on Instagram (Jennifer Jangles) or Facebook, you know that I got another Vintage Travel Trailer. A couple of years ago I re-habbed a 1969 Serro Scotty Hilander. I have lots of posts about it here on the blog.

We sold it after our big trip out west, our boys had grown so much that there was no way the four of us could camp in it again. I miss having it and I really missed having a weekend project. I really like the process of figuring out how to rebuild things. There are no rules and it's kind of like a puzzle.

Sooo long story short here, I have been looking for about a year for the perfect trailer and I found it a few weeks ago. It's definitely not as glamorous as my Scotty, but I have big plans to make it cute.

We won't be camping in this one, were going to park in the back yard and us it as a painting studio/guest room/hangout. It's all mine so this time around I do not have to take in to consideration that three boys will be living in it. That means I can have more flowers!

Yes, you're seeing things correctly, there is no floor. (But there will be!)

Stay tuned, I'll keep you updated on the progress.

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Studio Updates

It got warm here, in a weird way one day it was 40 and then the next it was 86. I guess were missing the 70's this year. It's also been raining like crazy, and so I have basically had a mud puddle outside my studio door for a while now.

The plan is to have a cute little garden outside the door. That's as far as I have gotten...I have been scouring pinterest for ideas but for now I am overwhelmed with possibility so I will do nothing.

Well nothing except my little walkway, I knew I needed it. And with Ruby (in the previous photo) next to me the whole time, I was able to do some terracing. She helped me dig. She likes to find tree roots because they are buried sticks and when your a dog it doesn't get better than that.

So now I have a little walkway, I'm still collecting a few rocks to finish off the front. I'll keep you posted on the planting, if it stays warm much longer, I won't be able to stay out of the garden centers for long.

Have a great day,

Studio Redo, Converting the Garage into a Studio

I have been terrible about showing photos of my studio redo, it's been a very long process, because I have been working on my studio as I slowly redo it. Back in the fall, I mentioned it would be starting.... but now I am back with some pictures of the work we have done so far.

Let me back up and say, my old studio, as bright and pretty as it was had two big problems. The biggest of problems....no windows. I really was going crazy spending my days in a room without windows. See when we bought our house, my studio was here and not in the house. As busy and fun as it was to have the store and the studio, it was a TON of stress and not really where I wanted my business to be. Nik and I had lots of conversations on how to remedy the studio problem, moving vs. not moving, etc. We love our house and especially our yard, and we never actually used the garage for our cars. The last two years it had been full of camper parts.

So we decided that we would covert the garage in to my studio. Here's what we did to get the bones of the studio.

First things first, I painted it white. Oh ya, forgot to mention the second problem with my old studio was the color. It was beautiful too look at, but incredibly hard to take pictures in there. I am a huge fab of white backgrounds to make colors pop, so I decided the studio should have a white background. There's color coming, I promise.

We built a giant closet along the back wall. That will store all of my show displays, patterns, etc.

 Next, we put in a door, Nik and I were hi giving on this one. We have never cute a hole in a wall, let alone put a door in, we were very proud of ourselves. It actually was pretty easy after watching a few YouTube videos to get some help.

Feeling so handy we decided to put in a window as well. There was one already, but we added a second.

Then on to covering up the garage door.

I did not want the signs of a garage door, but I also wanted to be able to convert the studio back to a garage if we ever decided to move. Darn it! I am kicking myself for not taking pictures of this, but anyway, we left the door up. We had a garage door specialist come out and remove the tension from the door. We did this because my dad warned me that those springs can kill you if they pop, not something I wanted to deal with. After the spring tension was released, I removed the track and the opener from the ceiling. I put them those parts in the big storage closet. Then I sealed around the garage door and built a wall. I insulated and drywalled it, something else I had never done. 

It doesn't look like a garage at all! 

Heres' the view of the outside. I've got plans to turn this into a little terraced garden and sitting area. I am waiting on a warm up for that.

Stay tuned, I will be back soon with what I have been doing to the inside.

Have a great day,

Studio Re-Do and a Sample and De-Stash Sale

Lot's going on here at the Jennifer Jangles studio. I just wrapped up five big projects in August, whew! I can tell you that I filmed and edited a video class for The Sewing Party where I'll be teaching Nov. 8th, designed two fabric lines, and completed two other projects that I just can't tell you about yet. In the midst of all of that I decided it was time to move studios. What? Seriuosly, if you went through this blog and saw all of the studios that I have had....

Here's what has happened, first off all we considered moving last year for more space but we love our neighborhood and yard. Nik wasn't exactly on board with the idea either, but he was willing to consider it. So instead we decided that we would make this house exactly how we wanted it. First up was the kitchen, it's almost finished and then I will snap some photos. We didn't do the kitchen ourselves but the plan was finished the kitchen and then we would work on the rest of the house. We have a giant list in order of how we will do things but pretty much every room is getting something done to it.

Since the kitchen is almost finished and I couldn't be patient any longer I started on the studio. The plan is to convert the garage into my studio, it's warm here and we never park in it. My biggest problem with my studio was the lack of windows and the garage has one (right now). I have plans to put in a door and another window on that wall. I'll give you more details and photos when the time comes. As you can see I have a huge pile in the center for donations, yep this is how I've been spending my weekends.

I have been pinning all sorts of studio ideas over on Pinterest. This is my favorite and it was a garage before it was her studio. 

This leads me to my Sample and De-Stash Sale. I have some BIG business plans for the fall and I need to make better use of my space. First things first...I had to declutter. I have un-earthed so many beads from my book and magazine articles, 

so many pieces of jewelry from my old gallery, 

supplies from my old gallery, 

and lots of sewn samples of projects. 

It's kind of ridiculous and part of me wants to keep every thing but my practical side says I can't. 

I have been photographing, editing, and listing for three days now. I'm getting close to be finished and I have decided this sale will start tomorrow at noon EST. There are over 200 listings that will be in the Etsy shop. Tons of them are 5.00, can't go wrong with that price right? Just trying to clear the studio.....

I hope to see you there and i promise to keep you updated on the studio re-do.

Jennifer

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Spring Break Camping and Studio Organizing

Congrats to Julie Agler for winning the glamping week Give-A-Way. Thanks for all of your great comments and enthusiasm about the whole week as well, it was super fun.

We were able to get away for a few days this week in the camper. It was a test run to Florida, we have never pulled a trailer before, never hooked anything up....you know, we needed to learn some basics. We ended up at a great RV/campground that had a lot of retirees. A lot of our neighbors had started out in a camper just like ours. They enjoyed seeing ours and some even took pictures to send to other family members. They had loads of great advice and I'm sure they got some good laughs from us not knowing how to work a sewer hose.

I have to say the awning is still may favorite part of the whole camper, followed by my favorite glamping accessories to make my morning mochas.

Yep, I have found a camping espresso maker and a frothed for my mochas. I can't imagine a month out west without my mocha this summer. I was going to bring my big machine but Nik found these alternatives that work pretty darn well.

While I was in Florida I got to have lunch with Caroline from Sew Can She, it was fun to catch up with a friend and talk sewing and quilting. She's got a fun looking retreat planned in October in Key West for the release of her book. I really want to go.

We arrived home on Thursday and I walked in to my studio. It was an absolute disaster from all of the chaos before we left. I couldn't stand to be in there so I took Friday and Saturday to clean and rearrange some things. It's looking much better now. While I was at it, I called a contractor to come look at options for a window. I'm not sure if it can be done, but I have my fingers crossed.

Now that the studio is clean, I am working on some new sewing patterns that will be out in May just in time for Quilt Market and I'm sewing up a new project for you that will be in my newsletter later this week.

Talk to you soon,

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