Keepsakes to make with your pet
Whether it's a rainy weekend or you're just in Day #592456 of a lockdown, we've discovered our new favourite creative activity, and of course it's one that you can do with your pets! Pet parents don't often think about pet keepsakes until after their fur-babies have gone over the rainbow bridge, but making these keepsakes whilst they're still here adds to the memory you'll have (quite literally) forever!
Instead of popping yours into a memory box once you're finished, you can use them as Christmas decorations on the tree, name labels for your fur-babies' Christmas stockings or even add a hook to it to hang their lead and harness from. The options are endless, and we'd love to see what sort of uses you come up with for yours!
You will need:
- An at-home clay delivery kit. I was personally gifted a kit for my birthday, but a quick google for 'home clay kit' will bring up all the local options for you
- A small, shallow circle container
- Baking Paper
- A smoothing tool. If your clay kit doesn't come with one of these, use the blunt side of a knife
To make your keepsake:
- Trace around the edge of your container onto the baking paper to make a lining for your clay and cut it out from the baking paper. Put it in your shallow container to stop the clay from sticking to it as it dries.
2. Mix your clay with some water to make a gooey paste. You'll need the clay to be quite soft in order to make an indent with your pet's paw. The consistency of the clay as it arrives to you will likely be too hard to push your pets paw into, so the water will help with this.
3. Fill your container with your clay mixture, being sure to press out any air pockets or gaps so that it is entirely full and compact.
4. Using your smoothing tool or knife, smooth out the clay. This is where you will press your pet's paw into, so you want to make sure that this surface is as smooth as possible so you can see your design clearly.
5. From here, let your creative juices flow and do any design you want! We chose to do one paw print and write our babies' names on top, but you might like to put a hole in the top so that you can thread a string through it once it's dried if you're making a tree decoration, or you might want to craft a clay hook and attach it to the the mould. You could even do a paw print and cut around it afterwards so that your finished piece is in the shape of your doggo's paw. Don't forget to wash your doggo's paw afterwards!
6. Leave your design to dry for 2 days in the container, then carefully remove it from the container and continue drying for a further week. Once the clay is fully dry, you can paint it, take it to a glazier to glaze it or leave as is. Here's some other things we've been making every weekend whilst we're still stuck at home in the world's longest lockdown...
