We Are Family

I've been in homes where family photos are standing on a table or mantle and portraits are hung on the wall. I've admired the children's school pictures or sports shots. It's nice to be surrounded by family. Rob and I don't have children, but we have fur kids and we have photos on tables and portraits on walls. Want to see?

At Christmas we received a portrait of Gracie.

Here's one of Bentley. We had a sofa just this color and his spot was on the end, just as in this painting.

I have to admit that I'm an Ebay junkie. I can spend hours looking at things for sale on the site and I feel an adrenalin surge when I'm in a bidding war. But I've also found some wonderful artists on Ebay and worked with them to get some neat paintings of my kids. Here's Morgan.

This is Bailey as a pup.

And this artist, Yvonne Carter, has done several for me. First one that resembles Fudge.

She's done two of Samba, one large piece and one tiny one. I also have a painting of Morgan by Yvonne.

I love this painting. I think it catches Samba's naughty spirit.

I found this at a street fair and at first glance it reminded me of Monty. It says " Once in a lifetime, a friend come along, Who is a once in a lifetime friend". That was Monty, there'll never be another just like him.

On Etsy I found a sweet little pin that reminded me of Morgan. Check out her shop here. She has lots of dog breeds and I highly recommend her work.

The day that Tsar was diagnosed, a few weeks ago, I received an email from Cafe Press where I often buy sweatshirts and gifts. They were offering to take a photo and make a wrapped canvas from it. I sent one of Tsar. The communications were wonderful. They had trouble with the first photo I sent and instead of just doing  a shoddy job, they explained the problem and gave me the opportunity to send another photo. I did and we were so pleased with the result. This is a large 16x20 canvas of Tsar that we'll hang in a special spot.

I plan to do more of these with the other dogs. Check them out, it's easy and they turn out beautifully. They also offer lots of sizes.

So you can see I have lots of family photos and paintings around the house.