With the holidays coming up, I thought it would be fun to share a personalized DIY paw print ornament that you can make with your pup! I made this with my own dog while playing Christmas music, and it was a fun project that got us into the holiday spirit. It was pretty easy to make (despite my dog’s squirminess) and only cost about $4.
What You’ll Need:
Plain ornament (mine was a flat plaster ornament, similar to this one from Michael’s)
2+ colors of paint
Paintbrush
Newspaper or paper towels
Ribbon
How To Do It:
Paint the ornament in the color(s) of your choice and let it dry.
Lay newspapers or paper towels down for the next step.
To do the pawprint, paint the color onto your dog’s paw. This is the hard part, so I recommend getting someone to help you with this. If you’re doing it on your own or have a squirmy dog, you can also do the dipping method of putting a little amount of paint on a plate (be sure to spread it out so that it’s a thin layer and not a glob) to have your dog dip her paw into. Once the paint is on the paw, help your dog press his paw onto the ornament, but you may want to do a test run first on paper to see if you need more or less paint on your dog’s paw.
Clean your dog’s paw with soap and water before finishing the project.
After the paw stamp, you’ll notice that the pawprint might not be opaque to your liking, so you can go back with a brush to touch it up.
Once the paint is all dry, tie your ribbon onto the ornament to hang it.
Voila! You have a personalized dog ornament for your tree or wherever you may wish to hang it. There are many ways you can customize the ornament, like using different colors of paint, adding your dog’s name, or using a spherical ornament. This was such a fun and entertaining project to do with my dog, so I hope you try it out with yours too!
Send us pictures of your ornaments and we'll share them on Instagram!
All proceeds from Thousand Hills Pet Resort support New Life K9s. New Life K9s provides service dogs to veterans and first responders with PTSD at no cost to them.