Owning a family pet comes with a thousand amazing memories that will make you smile for years, a handful of frustrating memories as you work through training and ‘bad dog’ moments, and unfortunately a few really sad memories when you have to say goodbye to your four-legged family member.

My husband and I recently had to say good-bye to our 18-year-old Jack Russell named Lady Jane. It tore my heart in two at the time and still, even months later when I feel like I am starting to be ready to at talk about it, brings tears to my eyes and an uncomfortable warmth to my chest.

Through the experience though, I learned two things … that I miss her everyday still; and that by far the good memories of her far outnumber and outweigh the sad, saying goodbye memories. My hubby and I honour her by sharing memories whenever they come to mind of her crazy Jack Russell antics and all the things she did to make us laugh or make us feel her unconditional love.

I wanted to find a way to bring that same honour of her memory to my scrapbook …

My approach included finding my favourite picture of her and blowing it up to 8*8. She liked to get her nose right in my face and just stare at me. It was her, usually successful, way of mind controlling me to walk her or give her a treat or both. I used an 8×8 photo size as I wanted the photo to almost fill the 12×12 layout I was creating (just as her little furry head used to fill my field of vision) but also leave room for a title and some embellishments.
I then created strips of white card stock, outlined them messily in black thin marker and then just started document everything we miss about her, each on its own strip of paper. I documented things about her personality we miss and our favourite stories. Everything from the sound of her little feet on the hardwood to the not once but two times she got skunked in our backyard in a summer. I made some extra empty strips and will tuck those into the page protector in the album too. So when other memories come to mind from me or my hubby, I can add them to the page.

I turned these two main elements into a two page layout using random teal and blue scraps, black or teal washi, and a collection of black and teal or heart-shaped embellies from my stash. Layering with bit of chaos as she was prone to creating in our home when she was excited about something was my design goal and a white background provided an awesome canvas. Which I personalized by tracing the outline of the 12×12 cardstock messily and adding some baby hearts all about the page in the empty spaces. A little symbol of how Lady Jane filled those little empty spaces in our hearts.

A tough layout from an emotional perspective, but once I had her pic and those strips of paper it was so fun to put together and spend the couple of hours basking in her crazy, furry memory.

Rest in peace you wee, googly-eyed, hairy pot roast.

~ Brande

Scrapbooker + Story teller + Historian = Scrapstorian. Are you a Scrapstorian?