Married to the Empire

Monday, June 20, 2011

Paw Prints and Portraits

A friend I went to school with in Norway sent me a special gift quite some time ago: two picture kits that come with frames, mats, and the stuff for making paw prints of your furballs.  I'm bad about dragging my feet on projects.  We made the paw prints of Calvin and Doogie back in November, but I didn't put the frames together until June. 

My name is Anne Marie, and I'm a procrastinator. 

The frames came with boring white mats, so to jazz them up I painted them with the fabric paint I used when I did my bedroom curtains.  And to further let you know just how in-stages I did this project, I painted the mats when I had a craft day with my niece in May.  I had the mats, the photos, the paw prints, basically everything, but didn't put it all together until last week.

See previous statement about being a procrastinator.

I am so pleased with how these turned out!  Calvin got the green mat, which looks fabulous with his eyes, brown fur, and green-printed bag he tangled himself up in.  Doogie got the blue, which beautifully sets off his gorgeous gray-and-white fur.  I had/have some very handsome boys!  I also went with personality shots, rather than true portraits, but I prefer capturing and remembering them in action.  My apologies for the lousy photos, but it's really hard to take a picture of something behind reflective glass!



They'll hang in the master bedroom.  They're not there yet because of the whole procrastination thing. 

4 comments:

Beth S said...

Those came out beautiful!! My boys are not much into crafting, but I think they'd enjoy making something like this. Was it very hard to get good pawprints?

Anne Marie@Married to the Empire said...

Not at all! The kits came with really lightweight clay-type stuff. I think it might be similar to that Crayola brand of modeling magic stuff. It air dries, which makes it that much easier. My boys didn't enjoy the process, but they tolerated it. It did take Steven holding the cat while I pressed a paw into the clay, though. Definitely a two-person process!

When we had to put Calvin down, the vet tech offered to do a paw impression for us. I told her no because we'd made these, paw print ornaments, AND I'd put his "pawtograph" in the book with the story I had published about the cats. In fact, I'd given the vet's office a "pawtographed" copy. They loved it!

Anonymous said...

Too cute!

Jenny Woolf said...

They're great . I know lots of people who would love kits like these.