This post is sponsored by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment and The Secret Life of Pets. As always, the opinions are entirely my own. 

All three of my children actually sat through an ENTIRE movie on the weekend. Gosh almighty, I swear I’ve been waiting YEARS for this to happen! We sat down together as a family and watched The Secret Life of Pets (You can buy it on Blu-ray & DVD on December 6) and we made it through the entire movie without pausing it even once. I have been dreaming of having a family movie night, probably since before I even had my kids!

Then we had three kids and we realized that 1. They don’t like grown up movies, and 2. They don’t like to sit still for very long. So it took us a few extra years to make this happen… All I can say is thank goodness these kids movies are filled with grown up humour! My husband and I were laughing out loud a few times, and the kids were like “whaaaat???”. Ha!

Also, did I tell you we got a dog last month? It’s a long story, but he’s a furry little silver coloured miniature poodle named Chase. The kids have been over-the-moon thrilled about having him here! They’re super excited to buy him Christmas presents, and of course they wanted to make him his very own Christmas ornament to hang on the tree. These puppy paw print salt dough ornaments are SO CUTE!! And they’re such a fun way to celebrate our new furry friend! It’s such a sweet Christmas keepsake idea and they ended up looking ADORABLE!

So with our own new pet in the family, and The Secret Life of Pets movie to watch, I decided to make a whole fun filled family night out of it! We made the paw print salt dough ornaments, watched the movie together while the ornaments dried out in the oven, and then we painted and GLITTERIZED them (that’s not a word, but I’m okay with that…).

I know, I know, our dog is actually a boy, but the pink and white ornament above was inspired by one of the movie characters – I’ll get to that in a minute. It really ended up being the cutest one we made! We made a blue and white ornament for our pup, but it was harder to photograph. I’ve included a picture of it along with our new pup Chase down below.

My kids (or my girls at least…) fell in love with the movie character named Gidget. And since we had so many paw print ornaments that had baked, we decided to make one for Gidget as well. And it ended up being the cutest one we made!

The movie The Secret Life of Pets is a comedy about the lives our pets lead after we leave for work and school each day. Do you ever wonder what your own pets do when you’re not home? I’m pretty convinced our poodle spends a lot of time staring at our door like the main character of the movie, Max in the picture below (and possibly barking and scratching at the door too…).

You can buy The Secret Life of Pets with 3 Mini Movies on Blu-ray & DVD on December 6. It’s such a fun movie to watch together as a family this holiday season! It’s from the same people who made Despicable Me (my kids LOVE those movies too!).

The new release features nearly an hour of bonus content, including three hilarious mini-movies: the all-new Norman Television and Weenie PLUS Mower Minions which debuted in theaters and is now available to own.

The all-star voice cast includes Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Kevin Hart, Jenny Slate, Ellie Kemper, Lake Bell, Dana Carvey, Hannibal Buress, Bobby Moynihan, Steve Coogan and Albert Brooks. Here’s the trailer for the movie…

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Before we started watching the movie, we made the salt dough so it could dry out in the oven during the movie.

How to Make Paw Print Salt Dough Ornaments

The full printable recipe is at the end of this post, but here’s what you’ll need:

• Salt
• Water
• Flour
• Matte Finish Mod Podge
• Paint
• Glitter
• Gold Paint Pen or Sharpie

Our paw print salt dough ornaments were inspired by The Secret Life of Pets. It’s so much fun to personalize them for your own pets too!

Mix together all of the ingredients.

Then kneed it together until it becomes a doughy ball. If it’s too sticky, add a bit more flour.

Roll out it on the counter with a rolling pin until it’s about 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch thick.

Then use a small plastic cup to cut out the circles. Just make sure your cup is slightly larger than your dog’s paw.

Gently press your dog’s paw into the dough to make the imprint.

Use a straw to cut holes for the ribbon.

Then transfer the circles to a parchment lined baking sheet and bake them at 225ºF for 2 to 3 hours until they are completely dried out.

While the paw print salt dough ornaments were baking, I put together our movie night snacks.

OK, I might have gone a little overboard on the snacks. I LOVE movie theater snacks! So I tried to recreate that experience for my kids, in individual dollar store plastic bins so we wouldn’t have any arguments about sharing. The kids were soooooooo excited!!

Don’t worry… we ate healthy food the rest of the meals that day…

And yes, we have two perfectly comfortable sofas, but the kids chose to sit on the floor. Do your kids do that too? Go figure!

It gave my husband and I more room on the sofas while it lasted. By the end of the movie, they were all sitting on our laps anyway.

When the movie was over and our ornaments were baked and dried, they were ready to decorate! Paint, glue and glitter… oh my word, those are my girls’ favourite things!

We used acrylic paint from the dollar store to paint the ornaments.

We painted the whole thing white and painted the paw imprint pink for the Gidget inspired ornaments.

Then we added a layer of matte finish Mod Podge.

And sprinkled it generously with white glitter.

Once that had dried, we added a pink ribbon and bow.

The ornament we made for our little Chase was painted blue with a white paw imprint, with the paw imprint filled with glitter. Here’s a cameo of our little guy and his ornament.

You can make these in any style you like to match your pup’s colouring and personality.

5 from 3 votes

Paw Print Salt Dough Ornaments

You can make these in any style you like to match your pup’s colouring and personality!

Materials

• 1/2cupHot water
• 1/2cupSalt
• 1cupFlour
• Acrylic Paint
• Matte Finish Mod Podge
• Glitter
• Ribbon
• Gold Paint Pen or Sharpie

Instructions

• Mix together the hot water, salt and flour. Kneed it together with your hands until it forms a dough ball. If it’s too sticky, add some extra flour.
• Roll out the dough until it is 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch thick.
• Use small plastic cups to cut out circle shapes.
• Gently press your dog’s paw into the center of the circle to make an imprint.
• Use a drinking straw to cut a hole for the ribbon.
• Transfer the circles to a parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 225F for 2 to 3 hours until they are solid and completely dried out.
• Once they have cooled, paint the ornaments in colours to match your pup’s personality.
• Write your dog’s name and the year on the front or back of the ornament using a gold paint pen or Sharpie marker.
• Add a coat of Matte Finish Mod Podge and sprinkle it generously with glitter.
• If you only want the imprint filled with glitter, allow the first coat of Mod Podge to dry completely. Then add a generous second coat to the inside of the paw print and sprinkle it generously with glitter.
• String a ribbon through the hole to hang your ornament.
• If you want you can attach an extra ribbon or bow tie to the ornament using hot glue.

Our movie night watching The Secret Life of Pets was so much fun! And our paw print salt dough ornaments are adorable! It’s such an awesome keepsake to be able to pull out Chase’s ornament each year to hang on the Christmas tree! And we’ll keep on hanging Gidget’s ornament too because it’s just so darn cute!

If you’re looking for more fun and easy Christmas ornament ideas, you can check out our Melted Bead Ornaments. These are so simple to make, and they look beautiful!!