Pawprints on my heart

Many of you will be familiar with the phrase “Dogs leave pawprints on your heart.”  I don’t think there is a dog parent or former dog parent that would argue with it.

One of the ways I have kept my dogs in my heart is to preserve their paw prints for display in my home.  As a young child, I remember going to a local family day at our school.  At that event, each of us had our hand prints taken in plaster and they were painted in gold afterwards.  For many years, these handprints remained on the wall in our family room.

I decided to do something similar for my dogs (the first dogs I could claim were mine as a pet parent).

At the time I was taking Izzy’s print last year, I had to take everything off our walls in preparation for new wallpaper and painting.  It was an ideal time to decide about alternative ways of displaying my paw prints.  I really wanted them grouped together without having to place individual holes/hooks for each.

Here’s how it came together from the day I started on Izzy’s print:

 

So here’s the crafty bit.  I bought a belt at a secondhand store for $3 and some ribbon also at a secondhand store for $2.50.   Here’s what the belt looked like at the beginning, with its pin removed:

I then cut down the belt to a suitable length (removing the rivets at the top and length at the bottom) and wove black satin ribbon through the cutouts on the belt – affixing the ends of the ribbon to the back of the belt with glue using a hot glue gun.

I then attached each paw print to the new display using macrame cord. (If I have other dogs in the future, there is room to cut the cords, and re-position the prints to add at least two more on this hanger)

Voilà – my unique wall hanging with the pawprints on my heart.

Kathleen Crisley, Fear-Free certified professional and specialist in dog massage, rehabilitation and nutrition/food therapy, The Balanced Dog, Christchurch, New Zealand