Gone to the Dogs

Those of you who have pets will likely agree that, while we do know that our pets are animals, they are still considered to be members of our {family}. Our family includes 2 dogs ~ Molly, an 11 1/2-year-old chocolate lab who is a stubborn, and incredibly affectionate, trouble-maker...and Sam, a 6-year-old yellow lab (we got him from a rescue group when he was 2) who is my protective shadow, and tolerant of tiny people who like to do things to him...like make him wear hats.

As with the other members of our family, I like having photos of our dogs (including Belle, our first yellow lab) displayed in our home ~ but it had never occurred to me to do anything other than photos until I stumbled upon this link on Pinterest.

I knew I wanted to make my own version, and this is what I ended up with...






There are, sadly, no pictures of the paw-printing part of the process. I'm pretty sure you can figure out why... 2 dogs, 1 human, a windy-ish day....yeah. I'll give the best description I can!
To get this....





You will need:
A paper plate
A paint brush
Paint
Paper Towel or a Junk Towel
Cardstock
A dog! ;)

Step 1 - Get your dog/s & all of your supplies set up outside. Unless you're desperate for an excuse to get new flooring.

Step 2 - Pour a little bit of paint onto your paper plate and use the paint brush to spread it around. Make sure you've got enough paint spread on the plate to cover your dog's whole paw.

Step 3 - Put the plate on the ground and guide his/her foot into the paint. Press gently on your dog's paw to make sure you're getting paint on all of the pads.

Step 4 - Lift your dog's paw, slide the plate out, and slide the paper into place. Make sure you position the paper so that the paw print will be where you want it to be. Gently press your dog's paw onto the cardstock. You may find that there is too much paint on his/her paw, making the print come out messier than you want. If that's the case, go ahead and try again on a fresh piece of cardstock. Sometimes, the second print comes out better than the first. Keeping this in mind, you may want to use a paper towel to blot some of the paint off of your dog's paw before putting it onto the paper.

Step 5 - Using an icky towel or a paper towel, gently wipe off your dog's paw to remove any left-over paint. (I also filled a shallow dish with warm water and dipped their paws in, just to make sure they were clean before they came into the house.)

Next, I used some $3 frames from Meijer. They came with plain white mats, but I wanted something with a bit more personality. Not wanting to make a bunch of stops at different stores, I decided to hit the gift-wrap aisle and see what I could find. After a lot of debate (I wanted coordinating colors, but not matching, and nothing printed b/c it would be too busy, and it had to be CHEAP) I settled on a pack of multi-colored tissue paper.

I laid the mat down on the paper and cut around the outside. Then I taped the paper down onto the back of the mat, like I would if I were wrapping a gift.





Next, I poked a hole in the center of the tissue paper, and cut slits all the way to each of the corners.





I wrapped those around, too, trimming off any excess. This is what the back of the mat looked like when I was finished.





Next, I trimmed the cardstock down so that the paw would be placed where I wanted it to be in the frame. When I was happy with that, I busted out a Sharpie (so high tech) and wrote the dogs' names underneath their paw prints. I would know which one belonged to which dog, but I wanted other people to know, too.





Finally, I popped them into their frames, knocked a couple of nails into the wall, and hung them! :) So bright, cheerful, and happy. And now that I'm seeing them on the gallery wall in my craft room, I'm debating about doing something fun to some of the other mats, too.





I have to say, I absolutely adore the end result. Are there random black paw prints on my driveway? Yes....yes, there are. But I'm okay with that. And I can tell you, I'll be doing this project with every dog we have from here on out. I hope you will be, too!