Heart of the Hills

Good afternoon, blogging world!

So yesterday was opening day for the camp I spent ten summers of my life going to, and it is breaking my heart not being there. There is so much excitement and happiness going around, I can practically feel the camp magic when I think about it. In honor of opening day, I thought I would share some of the things I painted for a camper during first term and a few other little things. The snapshot above was actually from last year's opening day! Can you imagine what people must have thought driving past us? Like, "Who are these people jumping up and down on the side of a highway with paint all over themselves?" Well, it's a camp thing.

the wonderful sixteen year olds from last summer

There is no way to sum up all of the wonderful stories and experiences I had at the Heart in just one blog post. In fact, if I were to even try to do that it would probably end up being more like a novel, but thought I would share some artwork I did for a camp friend!

all 22 Andromeda canvases! 

One of the biggest parts of camp is war canoe. This year I was asked to paint canvases for a first term camper named Phoebe for her war canoe gifts! I will admit, I was a little nervous to make 22 identical canvases, but I wanted to create something that the girls would love. Because I was a camper and in war canoe myself, I was well aware of how special the moment is when you get your first war canoe shirt and how unbelievably awesome it feels to wear it around camp. Those memories inspired my design for Phoebe's canvases.

Phoebe with her canvases! You can see the can canoe shirt as well.

The gifts are supposed to be very special, and they are given out during a devotional with your team after the practice race. I really wanted to make them special since it was Phoebe's last year of camp, so I decided that for each canvas, I would paint it exactly like their war canoe shirt. Shawnee War Canoe is called "Andromeda" and so on top of the design of the tshirt, I decided to do "Andromeda" in gold script. 

I don't know about you, but I'm seeing twenty twoooo

close up of the Andromeda canvas

Meghan was my special delivery helper for the order! Can't thank you enough!!

Although I wasn't a Shawnee, it brought me an insane amount of joy to have been able to paint these canvases.  I hope all of you first term Shawnee War Canoe girls love them! Congratulations on winning the race! 

ps flyers

(I had to slip a picture of Pawnee War Canoe, too! Just for good measure. Boom boom boom boom xo)

Love love love,
Bethany

Heart o' the Hills

Well, I'm officially back from camp. There's always this sort of sadness that comes with being home from camp. You're extremely happy to see your parents, your family, your dog, your nice clean bed, and (well for me at least)  Whole Foods. However, you can't shake the feeling of wishing you were still swimming in the crisp Guadalupe  River or stargazing with your best friends under a Texas hill country sky. This was my tenth summer at Heart o' the Hills, and it was one of the best! I got to be a sponsor for the Pawnee tribe with one of my best friends, Christina- at camp her nickname is "Socks", I had an AWESOME cabin filled with the sweetest, craziest, One Direction loving girls that mean so much to me, and wonderful counselors from everywhere - from San Antonio to New Zealand. What a rewarding experience!! Hopefully I will get to go back next summer because I can't imagine a summer as fantastic as this! Every single counselor was incredible, all such beautiful role models for the campers. I actually got to be on Staff with two of my cousins this summer, and because I have looked up to both of them for so many years, I felt like the luckiest person in the world. 

My cabin was so much fun, and I miss them already!! Everyday we would jam out to One Direction, High School Musical, Drake, or original songs by Erin. We may not have had the cleanest cabin, but we had the best times. Crazy pranks, glow stick camp fires, Mean Girls, the list goes on and on. I started tearing up on closing day when we were sitting by the river singing a camp rendition of "Tonight" by FUN that talked about camp ending, and then when we sang "My Wish" by Rascal Flatts I lost it. Seriously you guys are so wonderful, and I hope hope hope that I get to come back next year as your counselor!!! 

Disney Field day with our amazing chieftain (tribe leader) Sherilyn. I was Wendy...Socks was Captain Hook. 

 Naturally I used my craftiness to make a lot of gifts for my girls, but of course I didn't take any pictures of the things I made- except for this one! We had a contest out of the entire camp to submit a design to paint on the door of our art studio, and I won! My painting was called "La Luna". It is a starry night sky with a bright silvery crescent moon surrounded by silver and gold streaks. Along the borders of the doors are sunflowers and bluebonnets, and in the middle there is a bold red heart with a quote from one of my favorite camp songs, "All That Matters".

"All the world's knowledge can make you right smart, but the difference is made in the Heart."

Beautiful words. At the bottom I signed it and dedicated the painting to my family because if it weren't for them I never would have known about this wonderful place.

My vision so to speak was from the short story "La Luna" that precedes the movie Brave. The moon is also a Pawnee symbol and secret, so I felt it was special to camp.  I'm going to ask some of them to send me pictures of the gifts I made them so that I can put them on my blog. In the meantime I'll leave some pictures from camp on here so that everyone can get a peak at what the 60th summer at Heart o' the Hills was like! Love love love!

Heart camp girls we'll always be, 'till we meet again.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everyone! I have been making tons of deliveries this weekend even though I've been really under the weather. My mom and I were joking around that I was having a "trunk show" since I had so many canvases in our trunk! 

 Here's some pictures from today's Easter celebration!

I thought I would share this with y'all! I'm going to be a counselor at my camp this summer, and I really want to do some things for them! I've just been doodling ideas lately, but this is what I have right now: