Proverbs 3:5-6

Good morning, blogging word! Here's a little inspiration for today! I made this canvas this past week for Temi, a super sweet girl who has recruited tons of Arkansas orders for me. Temi, you are awesome! I can't wait to finish your last canvas and send them your way!

Happy Birthday Mamaw!

This is a little (2 days!) belated post dedicated to my sweet grandmother! 

happy birthday to my sweet mamaw

She is probably my number one viewer on my blog, and she is so supportive of everything I do! She is quite the artist herself, so I know where I got my creativity from. Thank you, Mamaw! I hope you birthday was twice as sweet as you are! xoxo

Texas Zeta Initiation

A few weeks ago was Zeta Initiation! Two of my friends asked me to paint their crowns for their littles. It was so much fun! I love their colors, and I was so excited to help them out!

I had painted this canvas for Rachel (for her little) earlier this semester, so she wanted her little's crown to have the same sort of theme on it.

I literally love these colors together so much that I wanted to keep this one! Thank you Rachel!!

I did both of the crowns above and the bulletin board! 

Hope y'all like the stuff! Thank you Rachel and Caroline for giving me the opportunity to paint for y'all!

Big/little!

So this post may be a tad bit late, but last week we had BIG LITTLE REVEAL!!! My little is awesome, and her name is Grace! Her last name sounds like "salsa", so we were chips and salsa. I thought it was pretty creative. I painted her a canvas with her monogram on it, and this year since our initiation was so early, we are doing paddles later. I want hers to look really cute! I'm doing my roomie's paddle for her little, so when I'm done with them I'll post them on here. Also, I just got an order from a DZ at Iowa State for a Lilly themed one! So cool how people from different states have seen my blog. Oh the wonders of the internet!! Also..GET READY!!! I have been painting just a few coolers for Texas/OU, and as soon as I am done I will put them up. Oh yeah I almost forgot! It's gameday, y'all. Hook 'em, horns!

15,000!!!

OH MY GOODNESS. I woke up this morning to a text from my boyfriend saying I had reached 15,000 VIEWS ON MY BLOG!! He was number 15,000, so he was pretty excited about it. *Shout out to Dave!!* That's just crazy- 15 whole thousand views. Just WOW!!!!

 

This weekend I was so busy painting and doing homework that I barely even posted or checked my blog. Thank you everyone for continuing to check it out every once in a while. It's exciting for me to see the increased traffic! Let's see what I have been up to lately...

Eeek super excited about some things I am posting soon. Christina Williams of Christina Williams Designs (check her out of Facebook- AWESOME things!) had me make a plethora of canvases for her upcoming shows including a few Bible verses, a TCU canvas, her own personal logo, and my favorite...HALLOWEEN CANVASES! It's never too early for Halloween. Starbucks is already kickin' the season off with their delicious pumpkin spice latte...YUM.

Lots of love to all of my viewers and thank you for the support!
<3 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.

Lilly LOVE!

One of my best friends named Lily goes to Stephen F. Austin and is a Delta Zeta! She wanted to do a little something special for her big, so she asked me to make a canvas with 1 Corinthians 13:13 on it. I thought since it's for her big I would do a canvas inspired by the Lilly Pulitzer Delta Zeta print! I'm SO happy with the way it turned out! I can't wait for you to give it to her, Lily!!!

Here's a few pictures of the canvas before I did the Bible verse.

Here's the final product!! This verse is so beautiful. It's such a sweet message! Lilly Pulitzer has the cutest prints. I can't wait to try some of her other ones! Love y'all!

April Fools!

Happy April Fools!! Right now my wallet is playing a trick on me and hiding somewhere in my room...not a very funny joke, but it gave me time to paint yesterday! My friend Hannah wanted me to paint this Dr. Seuss quote for her:

So I did! I tried to make it a little wacky and cute with the fun designs and bright colors like the animations in his books. Dr.Seuss is one of my favorites! This quote is, too! Hope y'all like this one; there will be more soon!

I just got another order for this one! If anyone else does, let me know!! I love it!

Rez Week at UT!

So today I was walking out of Gregory gym and noticed these huge white wooden boards all set up around a tent. I'll admit, I have seen some pretty strange things at UT, so this is kinda the norm. For some reason today I actually went up to the boards and read what they said. After realizing it was a display for Rez Week,  I got really excited and looked at every single board! Some had paintings on them, but the on the other side they were blank. The coolest part was that someone had left prismas for anyone to use, and people had started writing notes to God or scriptures on the blank sides...so...naturally I couldn't resist and this is how I left my mark:

If you want to read more, go to this site! 

http://texasunited.org/about/about-crm/

4000

Because I just reached 4,000 views, I thought I would share some pictures from this month. You guys probably get tired of just seeing canvases on here. I'm trying to post more about the stories behind each one, so that's something neat y'all (and I) can look forward to. If you have something I made for you, feel free to send me a picture of how it looks in your room, kitchen, wall, or home! I'll post it on here with a little shout out. Happy March!

Heart of Texas canvas I made for Micayla! I'll post a full view soon!

Towne Lake. Seriously the most beautiful place in the city.
And this taken on an iPhone...imagine how it really looks! 

Happy Birthday to US!!! Micah, me, and Tripp!

Dad's weekend!

Kaya! My little sista came to visit! She is the sweetest.

My old team came to visit this past week. My coach use to play football here, so we got to have a tour of the facilities and the stadium! We even got to go on the field! 

Jacque & Mike's Story

One day earlier this month I received an e-mail from Jacque for a very special order of canvases. The thing I love most about doing this is that when people ask me to make a canvas for them, they share a little story with me about who or what it's for. Jacque's story she sent to me was so beautiful that I asked her if I could share it with you. I know it will touch your heart! 

In March of last year, she and her husband Mike went through a very devastating time in their lives when they had a miscarriage. They just prayed for God's guidance and that He would lead them in the direction they were to go. How amazing is that?! This story really hit home with me because I remember when my aunt and uncle were trying to have another child, and they decided to adopt. It was a very long, exhausting process, and it's definitely not easy. They adopted Lacy from St. Petersburg, Russia, and she has been such a blessing to our family. I know Jacque and Mike deserve a blessing just like that! God listened to their prayers and this is what happened. 

 In the summer of 2011, they were presented with an opportunity to go on a missions trip to Uganda, Africa to work with the orphans in Iganga. It was there that we met and fell in love with Phiona. Her story is tragically beautiful in that she was almost aborted before she was born. The "house mom" at the orphanage talked Phiona's biological parents out of aborting but they only accepted on the condition that the house mom take Phiona once she was born. So, the day she was born, her biological parents gave her up. She lived with the house mom until she was 4 and has been living at the orphanage ever since. She is absolutely beautiful and is so full of joy and love that it would bring anyone to tears. Jacque said that she and her husband really do believe that she is the answer to their prayers and the "direction" that God wants them to follow.

I made this for little Phiona! The canvas next to it is for Mike and Jacque. I told my Bible Study to pray for them and that they get to bring Phiona home soon! They are so wonderful!! Send your prayers their way <3 <3 <3

Happy Birthday to ME!

Hello wonderful readers! Yesterday I celebrated my birthday back home with my family and my wonderful friend Erika (her name is probably in every other post by now!) A bunch of her friends at SHSU ordered canvas from me, and this is us in mid delivery process)

I absolutely LOVE her. It was the best present to see her on my birthday!

 It was such an awesome weekend with so many great things happening. First off, on Friday night, the sweetest girl Emily Puig texted me and told me she got into UT! Then about 15 minutes later, I ran into her! It was definitely a God thing. I was so happy to see her, and we got a picture to savor the moment...it's not the best quality, but oh well!

Then my family went a beautiful wedding for Andrew and Bridie Chaudior! I snapped a few pictures throughout the night and wanted to share them with you!

Sunday was my birthday, and it was a very busy day! I had breakfast/brunch with Erika, my mom, and my grandma (aka Mamaw) at La Madeline...which was absolutely delicious. I flew back to ATX later that afternoon and had a birthday dinner with some friends!

Look at that beautiful longhorn!

Keep Calm and..

 Well, I finished my first semester of college! It's so weird to think about, but I made it! I start back at work tomorrow, so I had to get my crafting in before my schedule got too crazy. My mom and I hit up our favorite place...MICHAEL'S! I was running low on red paint, and she wanted some clear wrap for gifts. (Funny how she buys all the paper, but I usually wrap the gifts! HA!)
 My friend Meagan, a Chi O at Texas, wanted me to make her a little something, so here it is! 

YAY! More to come!

-Bethany

Giving Thanks

This was my biggest project of the break..and my favorite. It's an 8 by 12 frame with the words faith, hope, and love written in red hearts. The hearts are set on a white glitter background that sparkles in the light! This one will be around $20.00 because it is bigger and has more pieces involved than some of my other items. Eeek yay for a weekend with no worries about finals...I guess that'll be here in like a week. Thanks for the feedback guys, keep it coming!

Love, Bethany

Love & Matthew 6:21

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." -Matthew 6:21

I stumbled upon that verse the other day while I was painting a canvas for a girl in my Young Life small group, and now it's added to my list of favorites! Really though, how true is that..I've heard the saying whatever you find yourself doing or day dreaming about when you're actually supposed to be doing work is what you truly should be doing. (Eeek..I guess day dreaming about the chocolate chip cookies I saw on Pinterest the other day doesn't really fall into that..oops.) Ha! That's how I feel about my art though. No matter how small my project is, it makes me incredibly happy. I think that's a sign, don't you? Anyway, my Bible Study leader just got married last weekend, so we had an awesome time talking to her about the wedding and everything! She also talking to us about the idea of following your heart in your job or work because she has been thinking about doing photography, but it would be a challenge to start fresh. We just need to wait and listen to God, and he will guide us to our path. She and Branden are probably one of the cutest, most perfect couples, and they both love the Lord so much. We were all dying of jealously from the stories, but it was so fun to hear about her first dance, the Oreo wedding cake, and how happy she and Branden are. She's just the cutest person on the planet, and her husband is incredible. Actually, they are kind of famous - well, on YouTube anyway!! I'll post their proposal video on here. It'll make you cry because it is so God honoring and heartfelt. 

Ps. Here's what I made for Madison this week! She really liked them, and I hope you do, too!

Love Y'all! -Bethany