Scrapbooking Your Pets

By Gail Kavanagh

Want a new pet project to while away your scrapbooking hours? Why not scrapbook a beloved family pet?

First of all make sure you have a good image. If you have to take a special photo, snap your dog in her favorite chair (yours!) or your cat in a favorite window nook. If you love taking your pet to the park, get someone to take a photo of you walking together or throwing a Frisbee.

Does your pet suggest his own theme? A Scottie dog is just begging for colorful tartan background papers, and lots of lovely embellishments with a Scottish theme – die cut thistles or bagpipes and swatches of real tartan. A Persian or Siamese cat calls for a languid oriental theme, with pieces of real silk.

Often the hardest thing is coming up with a title for your pages – try to avoid clichés like `A Dog’s Life’ or `Simply Purrfect’ unless you can spin them in a humorous or original way. Link the title to something about your pet that amuses or appeals to you – a funny saying like `Dogs have owners – cats have staff’ might just sum up your pet’s attitude to life, while a word play on your pet’s name could be fun.

Label makers make excellent titles for pet pages, looking a little like collars when they are stuck to the page. Click out your title on the label maker, and leave a long end blank. You can add a tiny buckle to this end to enhance the trompe l’oeil.

Use your pet’s old tag, if you have one, or flatten a bottle cap with a wooden mallet and paint it to look like a pet tag. Ordinary round cardstock tags can also be decorated with rubber stamps to look like pet tags.

Look around your scrapbooking store for embellishments that will brighten up your page and help tell the story of your pet. Metal tags and charms look great, but bunches of fibers can be fun as well if you have a shaggy haired dog.

But don’t stop at bought embellishments. A collar your pet wore as a puppy or kitten, or other small memento, can be added to the pages. For our beloved deceased Chihuahua, I added the tiny Christmas stocking that held his favorite chews every year. The fact that there is a hole in the heel, when his patience ran out on Christmas morning, just makes it all the more precious.

Journaling for your pets needs just as much care as for any other project. You can use a simple theme such as `10 things I love about you’ or make a fold out book to go on the page for extra photos and anecdotes.

If you have a favorite story about your pet, journal it by hand or print it out on the computer and add it to the page.

Scrapbooking can also be a good way of keeping your pet’s important papers in a safe place. Put a pocket on the page, using folded cardstock or a decorative envelope, and use it to hold your pet’s registration papers, awards or breed certificates.

Whether your pet is the Best of Show or just the family mutt, he or she deserves a place in your scrapbooks.

© Doityourself.com 2006