God Is Great...

My little nephew, Ian, says this prayer at dinner and it is so sweet in his little voice. I can't help but to think about him when I see these words!

This very special mealtime prayer is for LeAnn Nokes. She liked the one I did a while back (click here to see it!) but wanted a slightly smaller version. This one is 11x14, features tone on tone background stenciling, and a sheer white ribbon.

Family Canvas

The khaki over the red with the cream in the background is so pretty. This is a favorite font, too. This one is off to Nashville to new customer Kati Bumgardner. Thanks, Kati!

The Alot is Better Than You at Everything

As a grammatically conscientious person who frequents internet forums and YouTube, I have found it necessary to develop a few coping mechanisms.  When someone types out "u" instead of "you," instead of getting mad, I imagine them having only one finger on each hand and then their actions seem reasonable.  If I only had one finger on each hand, I'd leave out unnecessary letters too!

If I come across a person who seems to completely ignore the existence of apostrophes and capital letters and types things like "im an eagle and im typing with my talons, so dont make fun of me cuz this is hard," I like to imagine that they actually are an eagle typing with their talons.  It would be a hassle if you had to hop in the air and use your feet to karate-chop two keys simultaneously every time you wanted to use the shift key to make a capital letter.   Also, eagles lack manual dexterity, so I can understand why they'd want to leave out apostrophes.  Eagles are all about efficiency.  

But there is one grammatical mistake that I particularly enjoy encountering.  It has become almost fun for me to come across people who take the phrase "a lot" and condense it down into one word, because when someone says "alot," this is what I imagine:

The Alot is an imaginary creature that I made up to help me deal with my compulsive need to correct other people's grammar.  It kind of looks like a cross between a bear, a yak and a pug, and it has provided hours of entertainment for me in a situation where I'd normally be left feeling angry and disillusioned with the world.  

For example, when I read the sentence "I care about this alot," this is what I imagine: 

Similarly, when someone says "alot of _______", I picture an Alot made out of whatever they are talking about.  

If someone says something like "I feel lonely alot" or "I'm angry alot," I'm going to imagine them standing there with an emo haircut, sharing their feelings with an Alot.  

The Alot is incredibly versatile. 

So the next time you are reading along and you see some guy ranting about how he is "alot better at swimming than Michael Phelps," instead of getting angry, you can be like "You're right!  Alots are known for their superior swimming capabilities."

  

Rustic Rooster

Burgundy, pale blue, and gold...

rustic, beat up, antiqued...

"I'm thinking roosters". These are all of the words used to describe what Ashley wanted on this canvas for her parents. I had a hard time picturing it and I always have a vision of the finished painting before I even start. I was flying blind on this one!
The more I worked, the more it came into focus. I love this unexpected color combination. I used a stencil and a brown glaze to get the faded overlay design. The final step was sanding the edges and corners to really get an antique feel.

I love it, Ashley! Thank you!

Boys and Girls

Chocolate brown just looks good with any color. Really. It works beautifully with the pale blue and green for a boy. This 10x10 was ordered by my mother to give as a baby shower gift. The diamond pattern has to be one of my favorites.

It is also adorable with pale pink. This 11x14 is for Snow Princess Hailey Woods. She redeemed her gift certificate for something special to match her bedroom. So cute!

Someone Should Probably Kill This Post With Fire

I put up a poll a couple days ago to try to gauge how you guys would feel about me putting a couple ads on my blog.  I allowed you to pick multiple answers, so the data might be skewed slightly, but even still, the results were a little surprising to me:

Don't you think you guys are being a little melodramatic about this?  Did you know that 224 of you are dead now?  

You should really try to die less easily.  

And to the 162 of you who are going to come to my house and kick me in the face (even though half of you are probably dead right now due to overlap in the results):  I'll be wearing a steel-reinforced hockey mask.   

Anyway, the ads are up.  There are three of them.   I know next to nothing about SEO, so the ads that show up are going to be pretty random.   

And in case any of you are worried, this is as far as I'm going to go with monetization on this blog.  (I had to bold this next part because even after posting about this on Facebook, Twitter and my blog, I am still getting comments/emails about how I better not put pop-ups on my blog.) 

You will never see me write a paid review of anything.  I will never molest you with pop-ups or pop-unders or anything that flashes or moves or causes my page to freeze.  There will be no pop-ups or moving things.  None.  Ever.  

That little box of text in the sidebar is it.  That is what I was making a big deal about.  

That being said, I do want to make this whole advertising thing more entertaining for you guys.  So what I'm going to do is run AdSense until I can get some direct advertisers who will allow me to design my own ads.  So, direct advertisers, here is a sample of what I can do for you, based off of product-requests from my readers (via Twitter and Facebook): 

While I recognize that I probably won't be getting advertising from Macintosh or Adobe Illustrator, it doesn't hurt to court them a little.  However, someone needs to take down Charmin Ultra because their thinly-veiled dingleberry jokes are getting kind of annoying.  

IN OTHER NEWS:  I haven't been posting as frequently.  You have probably noticed this.   I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up that crazy 7-day-a-week posting schedule I had going last month, but I think I can manage 3 or 4 posts a week pretty indefinitely once my life settles down a little.  So just in case you were worried, this lapse in posting doesn't mean my blog is in its death throes.  On the contrary, it means that my blog is doing so well that I've been too busy to write a post every single day.  

OH MY GOD THIS POST KEEPS GOING AND THERE REALLY ISN'T ANY CONTINUITY WHATSOEVER BUT THAT'S OKAY BECAUSE GUESS WHAT?

SPAGHATTA NADLE! 

I have been inundated with emails about Spaghatta Nadle, so here you go, weirdos. 

Spaghatta Nadle encounters the comments section of icanhascheezburger... 

And now two guest strips by Boyfriend: 

Okay.  This post was a monstrosity.  All the separate parts were okay, but when I put them together it just came out all weird.  Like putting A1 steak sauce on a banana.  

UPDATE:  I've been asked a few times about whether clicking the ads makes me money.  The answer is yes, but you can't just go clicking on every ad because you like me.  I wholeheartedly appreciate the sentiment, but Google classifies it as click-fraud and I'll get in trouble.  However, if you see something that interests you, feel free to take a look at it.  

Ultimate Blog Party

I just found this wonderful "blog party" through Kimberly at Oh My Baby. It looks like a great way to find new blogs, spread the word about yours, and possible win some cool prizes. Here's my party post and prize wish list!

Hi there! Thank you for visiting my blog today. I would love for you to become a follower either here or on facebook. I like to know who's watching!
As you can see, I love to paint. I paint everyday and everything you see on the blog was done by me by hand. I am always excited to meet new people and get those special, custom orders.
Besides painting, I am a fifth grade reading teacher and a mom of two. Along with my fab husband, we are always on the go - but that's how we like it!


Really and truly, all of the prizes are awesome! Here are a few of my favorites:
#6 - jewelry (always!)
#18 - healthy mom basket (I'm trying!)
#23 - monogram gift certificate (Lauren loves her monogramming:)
#31 - Amazon gift card (I am a reading teacher, after all)
#32 - Target gift card (my favorite place)
#34 - "Bliss" Body Butter (need I say more?)
#39 - Hilton Garden Inn (one of our fave hotels)
#51 - $25 French European gift card (anything European is for me!)