"You Decide" Giveaway

So here it is folks, another Artfulife giveaway. Only this time I am going to mix it up a bit. The winner of this giveaway gets to pick what I paint for them. I will paint any animal that you would like for the little one in your family. If your little guy likes dogs, I will paint him an illustration with a dog theme. If your little sweetheart likes kittens, then the illustration will be a kitten theme. The sky is the limit. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment telling me the animal you would want used in "your" illustration, and why. If your name is picked, I will paint the animal theme you left your comment about.  Last day for entries is Monday, August 18, 2008 at 4 pm. My little ones love to pick the winners, it's Zoe' turn to pick this weeks winner. 

This giveaway is to celebrate the opening of my new Artfulife Etsy store this weekend. Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend and I can't wait to see what animal I get to paint next. 

The size of the finished painting will fit into an 8"x 10" frame.

P.S. The painting will be in my illustrative kids style. I don't have enough time to do the photo realistic paintings that I have done in the past. Maybe in another giveaway when the kids are older.

And the Winner is................

The winner is Toni, of Amazing Grace.

A special thanks to all of you who left such kind and thoughtful comments. Thank you also to those of you who posted about the giveaway on your blogs. I have so much fun doing these giveaways. I love meeting each and every one of you and taking a peek into the fun and creative things you are surrounding you and your families with through your blogs. What a wonderful tool. I hope to see you again.

I am working very hard on a few new paintings for my Etsy shop. Check back because I will be posting a sneak peak of each of them. Also on Friday I am hosting another giveaway in celebration of the grand opening of Artfulife's Etsy shop. So I am off to play with the little ones, and paint my little fingers off. Hope everyone is having a great week.

Toni, just e-mail me (my e-mail address is to the side of my blog) your address and I will send your painting off this weekend.

Newest Illustration

"We are Family"

I finished this little painting up last night. I already know what frame it will go in. I just posted it on the dotted scrapbook paper so it would stand out. It won't have a dotted background when it's framed. This is the first painting I will be selling out of my Etsy store.

Today was my first day of watching a little one year old named Spencer. Things were not going as mom really wanted with the last babysitting situation. I offered to watch him. Right now we are seeing if it will work for both of us. If  everything goes like it did today, I will watch this little guy until he goes to kindergarten. I don't want to get too excited at how well things went today, but I would love to be able to help this family.

I will be posting another  illustration in the next few days. Please look for my Etsy shop's grand opening this weekend. I will be offering a super fun giveaway on Friday in celebration of the event. Hope everyone has a great week.

Thanks for all your kind comments about Sloan's little accident. We were very blessed. It could have been so much worse. 

Saturday Night Emergency Room Visit

We had such a blast all afternoon and evening on Saturday. I walked to Butcher Boy and picked up some yummy meat. Dean was working all day on installing the new water heater. So BBQ was just what would make the perfect day even better. We ate and then while we were cleaning up I asked Sloan if she could carry the cups and my glass into the house. On her way up the stairs, she tripped. The mason jar broke. Sloan started crying and screaming. Dean is like, I think you might want to come take a look at this. Blood was all over the place. When I first looked at Sloan's mouth, I couldn't see any of the bottom front teeth. I thought for sure my daughter was going to have to wear dentures the rest of her life. Once we got her cleaned up I found where all the blood was coming from. Poor little thing, she had a laceration that went strait through her lip. We couldn't tell if she had glass in the hole or not. So off to the emergency room we went. Thankfully they only had to use some Dermabond instead of stitches. It was so traumatic for Sloan, but once we got her calmed down she was wonderful about the whole thing. She has such aversions to Dr.' of any kind. I don't half blame her. She was amazing and I was sure to let her know how wonderful and brave she was.

Today when I picked her up from school, she had picked off the Dermabond! I could just spank her little buns! (not really, please don't call social services) But I couldn't believe it. She doesn't understand what scars are. It's a pretty good sized laceration. Little stinker. So I had two choices, take her back to the emergency room and have them put more Dermabond on the wound, or grab some liquid band aid from the store. I chose the latter. We will see if she leaves it on. The Dr. also put her on an antibiotic because of her diabetes. I know it's hard to see the wound to its fullest in this picture, but trust me, for a mom it's the most horrifying thing to see on one of your kids.

Saturday Afternoon in Technicolor

For all of you who are not family or close friends, I will apologize now for all the photo's of the kids. I have no family here in Reno (just friends who have become my family) so I have to post a lot of photos for all the Grams, Grampas, Bummas and Pop Pops, aunties and uncles who live so very far away. If nothing more maybe you can see through pictures, what a blast we had that day.