Adsense Background..almost border, is it okay?

The point is misleading visitors or not.
If you use a 336X280 adsense ad, most of the time, it will show 4 ads. If you put 4 images (or 1 image with 4 in it) you may mislead visitors who will think that the first image goes with the first ad and so on.
In the beekeep.com case, there is only 1 image beside the 4 ads. So how can a visitor possibly think that the image goes with one of the 4 ads? He can't...so there's no misleading here.

 

I think one image is also misleading but to a lot lesser extent as compared to 4 images. Google TOS in this case is very loose and open - and they have the entire decision to their own discretion. I don't like that - one smart a.. lawyer to come up with such a devious policy!

 

mojopixel is a good site mate..am going to try your tutorial to make one good logo