Cabin Gifts

Some of you may have seen the canvases I painted last month, they were ordered as gifts for Shawnee War Canoe at Heart o the Hills Camp for Girls, the camp I have spent 10 summers of my life attending. I have posted about it a few times and cannot say enough good things! For Second Term, I had an order of cabin gifts come in from the cutest mom ever, and here they are:

A closer look at the details:

This little Minnie Mouse is one of the campers who is received a canvas from Bkrafty as a cabin gift! So cute!


The reason the colors on the canvas are green blue and red is because Heart o the Hills has two tribes, the Pawnees and the Shawnees. The Pawnees are blue, and the Shawnees are green! After you're a camper, you belong to the "Heart Tribe" and which is red. Here's an old picture from my last year at camp, it shows all the colors together in the chieftain outfits. This picture was actually some of my inspiration for the canvases:

Here are some of my favorite pictures from camp this summer! I could post more, but then I'd put all 300 photos in one post.

This one is with the Pawnee Chieftain from last summer, Sherilyn! One of my best best friends in the world, Christina, and I were here tribe sponsors last summer. She is awesome, and I love her tons! Also, how could I not post this? The photobombing is just too good.

Chieftain generation photo with out newest chiefy blue...BARRETT!

My little sis Chloe!

The old chieftains always take a photo with the newest chieftain, so we had a ton of fun with that! Everybody wears a piece of the chieftain outfit, which is one of the coolest things. I love that tradition!

And there we have it!

BK

Wedding Bells!

This past weekend I delivered my first order of wedding signs! One of my fellow staff members at Heart o the Hills camp for girls, Monique Richard, is getting hitched this October, and she reached out to me for decorations. 

custom made wedding signs for Monique and Nick

Monique and Nick's wedding colors were a beautiful combination of champagne burgundy and latte, and I accented these colors in each of the signs. Monique told me what she was looking for with the designs, but she also encouraged me to use my own creativity so that they were more original. I had an awesome time digging into this project. 

a colorful ensemble of the signs that will be nailed to a long post and used at the wedding

Because their wedding will be at camp, they wanted it to be on the shabby chic side. My grandpa and I worked together to cut the wood signs that I painted, and we had a blast doing it! I have never used a power saw, so I let Papaw be in charge of that one. Some of the signs will also be used for wedding photos, for example, the "Mr." and "Mrs." signs will be used in their wedding photos and also on their chairs at the reception.

hand-painted "Mr." and "Mrs." signs on wood

The "Thank" and "you" signs are going to be used for their thank you notes! How adorable is that? I just love the idea of using creative signs in photos, and I am really glad that I was given the opportunity to make some.

hand-painted "thank" and "you" signs on wood

Let's see more, shall we? The sign below will be put on an easel at the ceremony. This creation is very unique. The burlap really brings in the chabby chic look I was going for, and the cute little heats are actually clothespins. The great part about that is after the wedding, you can interchange whatever you would like displayed on the sign.  

Another sign that will be nailed to the long post is the one below. Burgundy will be used more in the reception that the ceremony, so for this sign I used more burgundy in the script. This is hand-painted and is on the wood that my grandpa and I cut together. He is so excited about the final product!

 The sign below is actually a bright, shimmering gold color. It looks fabulous in the light, and it is such a cute saying! Mo said I could use fun colors if I wanted, so I picked out something that would also work with her wedding colors. Because the gold is such a statement, I chose white for the lettering.

 The sign below is my FAVORITE! I have noticed that in weddings now a days people are really getting into social media. Monique and Nick chose the hashtag (for all you twitter and instagram people out there) #Richard2Rode for their wedding. I think it is a fabulous idea. Because I used gold in the last
sign, I brought hints of the shimmery gold into this sign as well.

Below is a sign for the photo booth. I used fun frames and cute tiny props such as the ever popular mustache in this sign. Photo booths are always a hit, so I hope the sign is as well!

Here are closer looks at the other wooden signs painted for Monique and Nick:

shoes optional hand painted wedding sign on wood

reception custom painted wedding sign on wood

Congratulations Monique and Nick! I cannot wait to see all of the photos from the wedding. I know they'll all be beautiful.

XO Bethany

Boot Scootin' Boogie

Happy Monday!

So I have been painting these beauties for about a month now, and I have been spending a lot of time on them because there is so much detail involved in painting cowboy boots. Taylor and I talked a lot about what designs she might want included on her boots, and this is what the final product looks like:

The boots have maroon, white, and a hint of turquoise in the detailing I did with my handy dandy paintbrush. What you can't see very well in the photos, much to my dismay, is the hint of sparkles and glitter I added on top of the maroon. It really looks great when the light hits that glitter! I also added a few rhinestones here and there to add a touch of glitz. It's always fun to have snazzy shoes- especially for game day!!

Let's take another look. Here's a picture of what these kicks look like from the front, back, and side!

(The front is my personal favorite!)

texas a&m custom painted boots

 Now let's take a look at the back! Taylor wanted me to include her sorority, Kappa Kappa Gamma, onto her designs, so I painted "Kappa" in turquoise to match the detailing I painted. Another fun touch was adding tiny rhinestones to the "T" in the Texas A&M logo.

texas a&m custom painted cowboy boots

 Now a glance at what the boots look like from the side:

texas a&m custom painted boots

 I hope y'all enjoyed reading about one of my many projects from this summer. Don't forget to follow @bkraftydesigns on Instagram to get another glance into all of the designs I have been working on lately. It's tons of fun! If you are curious about how to place an order for custom painted boots, shoot me an email at bkraftydesigns@yahoo.com.

Have a great week!
-Bethany

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

The Lone Star State

Happy Monday, y'all! I have been getting a lot of requests for texas flag canvases lately! Whether they have "Texas Forever", a name, or a monogram, the flag design looks great with anything. Below you'll see just three examples of variations I have done with the Texas flag design recently. 

I have also seen a few other people who sell canvases trying to copy my design (and when I say this, I mean my script and everything), so I just wanted to let everyone know that this is the place to find the original Texas Forever canvas! I know pictures circulate on Pinterest, but if you're looking for that design, this is the best place to be!

texas flag canvas by bethany kelm with freehand  "texas forever" script

texas flag canvas by bkrafty designs with freehand personalized name

texas flag canvas by bkrafty designs with freehand monogram

Don't forget to follow @bkraftydesigns on Instagram and favorite my shop on Etsy!

A little bit of Lilly

Hey everyone! So I was asked to make another canvas with the Delta Zeta Lilly Pulitzer pattern recently, and I was also asked to do another Lilly rose pattern. The Delta Zeta Lilly canvas I did last year is actually one of my most popular blog posts. If you haven't seen it before, you can see it by clicking the Lilly Love Post link. 

final product of the two Lilly bible verse canvases

 This pattern is one of the most beautiful Lilly Pulitzer sorority patterns. I think the roses are just lovely, and even though I am not the biggest fan of pink, I think the different shades are beautiful. The bright colors really pop against one another.

beginning stages of the DZ Lilly canvas

 For this canvas, the custom order request was to include the Bible verse Matthew 5:16: "Let your light shine before others, that they may see your goof deeds and praise your Father in Heaven."

final product of the DZ Lilly canvas with Matthew 5:16

Thank you for reading! I finished a huge order of 22 canvases last week, so I look forward to posting more about that soon. Remember, if you see a canvas you like, feel free to comment or email me. If you're interested in ordering a canvas, email me, and we can discuss designs!