Puppies and DIY

Don't be afraid of DIY.

At least that's what I tell myself. And it is true. I see so many things on Etsy and websites that I know I could do myself, but the ease and convenience of simply ordering online and seeing it in your mailbox in two weeks is a trap I often find myself falling into. But not this time!

I have been wanting this adorable necklace. It is a custom, hand painted portrait of your pet, encased in a pendant. My local craft stores do not seem to carry do it yourself pendant kits, but I knew one had to be out there some where. Turns out it was also on Etsy... and Ebay if I wanted to do 20+ of them.

Now I get to make it myself and since I already know how to draw and watercolor, why not?! I get to work on something I will love, that will always have meaning for me, and get to have an excuse to play with watercolors again.

So with the pendant in hand, I broke out the watercolors and some cute pictures of my puppy, Gingko.
I did a few test sketches from a few different poses I liked. Mostly to try and figure out how small the image needed to be to fit under the glass. The Glass dome insert acts a little bit like a magnifying glass and makes the image seem much larger. So the circle of space I had to draw in was about 3/4 of the size of that glass disk. Once I had an idea of how big to draw I switched to the watercolor paper.

Once I had a sketch down that I liked I broke out the colors. Since she is such a light colored dog it was a little hard to get her color right. That image up there is much whiter than she is in person. She is a bit more orange but her face, neck and underbelly are all very white. Since she is a husky mix she does have a bit of the eyebrow markings, but since they are white on such a light yellow gold, you can hardly see them.

It was important to me to get it right though. And I think I did an alright job. One person I showed it to said, "Oh that's Gingko!" so I guess I did ok. Anyway, I am very happy and I saved about $40!