Now, I’m sure you know how much we love our babies (i.e. our furry pet babies). Those three crazy, rambunctious animals are the absolute loves of our lives besides each other. Tip over a lamp? Get scolded and then get cuddled two seconds later. Act like a complete, incompetent jerk when we are trying to bathe you? Still crumble under his sweet puppy dog eyes. Life is certainly more colorful (for better or worse) with Luna, Ginny and Rocky in our lives, but we love them for the sheer, innocent joy they give us. They make us belly laugh each and every day and that is priceless.

I could go on and on and on about these three little animals, but instead I’ll let two new pieces of art do all the talking.

Let’s rewind back in time when I stumbled upon one of my now-favorite blogs. I came across Yellow Brick Home when they were featured on a little blog you might know – Young House Love. I instantly fell in love with Kim and Scott’s Chicago apartment and have been following them weekly ever since. Their style is pretty darn close to ours – Actually, who am I kidding? I think we are couple soul mates in terms of taste. I glean quite a bit of inspiration from them (more on that next week), but they aren’t just home mavens – Kim has made a career for herself as a pet portrait artist. Her work is beautiful, perfectly capturing the expressions and personalities of pets all over the country. You can check out their (gorgeously updated) “Pet Shop” here to commission your own piece.

We already own one print from Kim – Remember this little pug?? But I wasn’t done yet…

After several months of coveting an original, I finally pulled the trigger and ordered two – One with both kitties and one of our Rocky-Bee.

A handful of weeks later, these beauties showed up at our door…

I absolutely adore how Kim was able to capture Ginny and Luna – She “got” the Ginny stare and Luna’s “Please won’t you pet me” gaze to a T. Look at the detail in Ginny’s markings – Just beautiful. And you can really see how sleek Luna’s ebony fur is. Oh, I just love them so much…

And, as any good art collector does, I so appreciate seeing that tiny little signature to notate that this is an original piece of art. Not to mention the neat little brand stamp on the inside.

While I adore the kitty portrait, there is something oh-so-so-so special about Rocky’s painting. Kim and I went back and forth over the perfect portrait for Rocky and we finally settled on this one after a little input from her hubby Scott. I’m so glad that he inserted his two-cents because this close cropped composition of Rocky’s famous begging stare is so spot on.

But where to put our pint-sized paintings? At 4×4 inches, I knew these little guys needed to go somewhere proportionate to their dimensions – i.e. on a pint-sized wall – so that they wouldn’t get lost. I chose a sliver of wall beside our thermostat. It’s adjacent to where I hung the silhouette portraits of me and John, so it seemed appropriate to keep the family portraiture together.

Although that pesky thermostat isn’t ideal front and center, I think the amazing paintings above and below it sort of distract from it and bring some much-needed color to that wall. Gosh would you look at those eyes…

These two paintings are quite possibly my favorite possessions in our home – If, God forbid, our home should ever catch fire it’s safe to say that I’ll be grabbing these on the way out the door (in addition to grabbing the real portrait subjects too, of course).

The things we do for our pets…