“My Shadow” Pet Tribute Scrapbooking Layout

First I have to tell you how I came up with this pet scrapbook layout idea. My favorite pet is my little long-haired chihuahua, Shadow. I wasn't the one who named him Shadow, but he couldn't be more true to his name. Everywhere I go, there he is...my little shadow.

What you need

Solid-colored cardstock for background
White paper for captions
Glue
Paper cutter or scissors
Eyelet accessories
Computer/color printer

Instructions

After taking a couple of pictures of Shadow I was trying to decide how to do a scrapbook layout for him. Whenever I think about Shadow I am reminded of the poem “My Shadow”, by Robert Louis Stevenson. It begins, “I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me…” I thought this poem would be a great accent to my scrapbook page, and a perfect tribute to my Shadow.

First I had to find the poem. I went to Google.com and typed in “My Shadow poem”. I couldn’t even remember the author’s name. After two or three tries I had the poem I was looking for. I copied the text and pasted it into my word processing program.

I wanted a different font to print the poem with, and I couldn’t find anything I liked on my computer. So I went back to Google and typed in “free fonts.” It took no time at all to find a bunch of fonts I liked, but I spent the next hour installing them all on my computer. Now I have about 50 new great scrapbooking fonts to choose from. I chose a font and printed out the poem. I then typed Shadow’s name vertically and printed it on a separate sheet of paper. Next I used my paper cutter to cut Shadow’s name into a long, narrow strip, and I trimmed the poem leaving about 1/2 inch around the edges (see photo).

With my two sheets of paper ready to glue to the card stock, I saw I really only had room for two photographs. I decided to leave the photos as they were and not use mats this time.

Next I glued the two sheets with the text onto the black card stock. I then inserted the eyelets to accent the corners of the poem (see photo). Last but not least, I glued the photos to the bottom of the page.

Of course you’ll want to use another poem for your pet, or maybe write your own! Anything that will evoke fond memories of your favorite pet.

Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer, mom, and owner of four home and family web sites. For scrapbooking, card making, gift-giving ideas, and more family memory-making activities, visit http://www.Crafty-Moms.com.