10 Ways to Celebrate Your Pet Through Art

Capture your pet's paw prints, either by snapping a photo or by using pet-friendly ink and paper, to create a whimsical custom pillow or framed print with Flutterbye Prints. Simply email the paw prints and your custom pet art will arrive in about four weeks. Make sure your pet's paw is at least 10 inches from the camera and that the fur between his paws is neatly trimmed when taking the photo.

As paint-and-sip art studios continue to grow in popularity, some now enable you to paint your own pets. The Painting With a Twist studio in Ashburn, Va., hosts regular pet painting classes, which serve as a fundraiser for a local animal rescue organization. Simply provide a photo of your pet ahead of the class so the teacher can pre-sketch an outline on the canvas for you to paint when you arrive. Bottle & Bottega also offers Paint Your Pet parties.

You may have loads of photos of your pet on your iPhone, but how many of those would you want to frame for your desk? Look to a professional photographer, like Andy Stolarek of Furtographs. He's been working with animals for nearly 20 years, so he knows how to capture what you love most about your pet in a photo shoot. For starters, he says to make sure your pet isn't hungry. And don't rush; animals can sense worry and anxiety.

Salt dough is a fun and simple way to preserve your pet's actual paw print. It's easy to make (you really only need salt, flour and water), easy to capture your pet's paw print and easy to turn into a paw print salt dough ornament, like Debbie Chapman of One Little Project did with her kids. Once the salt dough ornaments are hard and dry, decorate with paint, glitter and a ribbon to hang on the tree to celebrate your pet during the holidays.

If you have no inner artist to unleash but are eager to have a painting of your pet to hang over the fireplace, look to a professional like Tina Hartman of Picture Your Photo. Send in a digital photo of your favorite furbaby and within two weeks, Hartman will return a digital pet portrait by email for you to reproduce as many times as you like. Or, look to Pet Art With Heart, which will use pastels or oils to paint your pet from a photo.

It's hard to think of a more unique way to celebrate your pet through artwork than with a DNA pet portrait from DNA11. Choose the size and frame of your portrait, then DNA11 will send you a color swatch and a collection kit to swab the inside of your pet's cheek for a DNA sample. Just as all DNA is unique, so too is every colorful canvas print showcasing your pet's DNA identity. DNA11 can make DNA pet portraits for nearly every mammal, including dogs, cats and horses.

Preserve the likeness of your pet by way of a custom etching made by Greyboy Pet Prints that you can hang or display on your desk. Begin the process by emailing in a photo, which will be etched onto a metal plate, then pressed onto fine art paper. Artist Mandi Pratt says she can even infuse ash into the ink for a pet that has passed. This is a fun way to transform even a cell phone photo into artwork worthy of a frame.

A fun way to capture your pet through art is with an Andy Warhol-style pop art on canvas. Canvas Zoo specializes in creating colorful pop art from photos of your pets. If you have more than one pet but don't have one photo of them side by side, it's no problem. Canvas Zoo can take two photos and create one pop art canvas with them together. They can also create colorful collages if you have multiple pet photos.

As a way to celebrate the dogs they have up for adoption, the Humane Society of Southern Arizona creates paw print paintings with each dog that are easy to do at home, too. Start with a large black-and-white print-out of your pet on simple copy paper, then dip your pet's paws in colorful, pet-safe paint. Next, have your pet walk around on top of the photo to place 10 or so paw prints on top of the photo. Frame and display in your home or office.