Pet Memorial Stone

Losing a pet is so hard, they come into our lives when we need them most, become part of our family, and steal a piece of our hearts when their short lives come to an end! Make a pet memorial stone to celebrate their life and to remember them and where their precious life was laid to rest by marking it with a personalized laser engraved stone!

Pet memorial stone with the name Brownie on it, a heart, and a hoof print

My sweet little Brownie baby was the cutest, sweetest little goat I had ever had! She was the goat I had been waiting for, a dark chocolate brown goat just like my best mama goat, Faith! Faith came through with the BEST little lady for me, but unfortunately she passed away! She is my only goat to have ever passed away and it was so sad to lose her! I wanted to mark her little grave to remember her always!

my tiny brown goat that I made the pet memorial stone to remember

We have lost a couple of chickens and that was hard as well, but my goats, certain ones are my little babies, and Brownie was my favorite! She had something wrong with her from birth, honestly, I am pretty sure she was inbred by two generations! I had two goats that jump fences and bred their mom! Ugh! It was so frustrating but it happens in this crazy homesteading life! Lol!

baby goats asleep on my legs while I was tanning

Faith is my motherly goat, she loves her babies and takes the best care of them, but Brownie she rejected from the beginning! I kept putting her back with her, and making her nurse her! Well, Faith being the wonderful mom that she is, took her back and nursed her for an entire year! But literally only four days after Faith finally weaned her, she passed away!

faith the mama goat with her baby goat brownie

She never seemed like she digested food properly because she never grew! She was TINY even though she was a year old! It was so hard to find and then the guilt of thinking I should have done better and tried harder hit me pretty hard after her death! I decided although it wouldn’t change anything I would make her a pet memorial spot to commemorate her adorable little life! This stone was engraved and this simple little cactus was the perfect addition!

the pet memorial stone in the dirt with a small succulent on top

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I added silhouettes of a dog, cat, bunny, bird, fish, and lizard to the file so that this can be personalized for your pet! I used my xTool S1 laser to engrave this right onto this inexpensive concrete stepping stone, but you can use a Cricut if you don’t have a laser and cut this as a stencil to paint the stone! But trust me, it is so much easier to just set the paver in the laser and let that machine do the work! lol!

If you haven’t checked out my review of the xTool S1, and the review of the xTool M1 you should as you can see if a laser is something you would like to add to your crafting arsenal and which one would best suite you if so!

Let me show you how I made this cute little stone! Don’t have a cricut or a laser but really want a pet memorial stone of your own, shoot me an email and maybe we can work out a deal to get you one made! Use the contact me form at the top of this page!

Gathering Supplies for the Pet Memorial Stone

I used a two dollar stepping stone to create this pet memorial stone, but you can use a piece of flagstone, a brick, or a rock you like to create one! You can even hand paint one should you not want to spend the money on a laser, but I am telling you, you won’t regret getting one, you can do SO MANY things with it! Check out some of my other cool things I have made with it here! Laser Crafts

SVG FILES: Grab the free file to make your own pet memorial! You will need to edit the name, dates, and writing that is already on it, but I left them to show location and size you will want to use, but feel free to change these to suite your needs! ***These files are offered free of charge to my readers and are available for personal use only! The files are copyright of The Inspired Workshop and are NOT allowed to be resold on your own website or any third party website such as Etsy or Firverr!

Materials for the Pet Memorial Stone:

Concrete stepping stone
black paint – I used Black Magic by Sherwin Williams because I had it on hand, you can use something like outdoor Apple Barrel paints for way cheaper!
laser engraver/cutter
small succulent and terra cotta pot – the small succulent came from Home Depot as well, but I can’t find individual ones online, but they have them in store for $3.97

Making the Pet Memorial Stone

Alright, this is such a simple project, but has such an impact, whether you add it into your flower garden for memory sake or actually mark the place of rest for your pet, it is a project that really means something!

First things first, I painted my stepping stone! I did not do a heavy coat as I wanted it to be worn looking, plus I want to concrete to be able to breathe through the paint so as to not make the paint peel! I tried engraving on the stepping stone without painting, and it does engrave on it, but there just wasn’t enough contrast for me, I wanted more! Lol! You can see where I started the top of the heart below!

concrete stepping stone before it was painted or engraved

I grabbed my paint and brush and gave it a light layer of Black Magic by Sherwin Williams!

painting the concrete stepping stone to make the pet memorial stone

concrete stepping stone painted black to make the pet memorial stone

I let the paint dry for 24 hours to make sure it was well dried before laser engraving on it!

I then set the stone into the laser bed! And opened the XCS software which is the software used to run the xTool lasers! You can also use Lightburn with the S1, but I have not learned that software yet! So XCS it is! Lol!

Setting up the Laser

Once the XCS software is open, select the material to the right, which I chose Stone Coaster from the drop down menu!

screenshot of choosing material for the pet memorial

Next, auto measure the distance so the machine can set the focus correctly! Make sure the laser module’s needle is over the stepping stone because that is how it measures!

screenshot of clicking the auto measure button on the xTool XCS software

Now hit the ‘Start Marking’ button so we can set the spot that our stepping stone sits inside the laser!

start marking button on in the xtool xcs software

A popup will appear, choose rectangle from the popup!

screenshot showing how to mark the area in xtool xcs software to create the pet memorial stone

Then hit the ‘Start Marking’ button in the popup!

start marking button in the popup window - screenshot

You will then move over to the machine and line the laser module cross hairs up on the top left corner!

setting the material in place in the laser bed and marking where it sits

Hit the button on the front of the machine to set that point! (pretend that the cross hairs are still in the upper left hand corner because yours will be! Lol)

pushing the button on the front of the xtool s1 machine

Next, set the cross hairs to the opposite corner, the bottom right!

setting the cross hairs of the laser engraver over on the edge of the stepping stone

Hit the button on the front of the machine again! (pretend the cross hairs are over the lower right corner still, lol)

Now the pop up on your screen will show the square you just set! Hit the ‘end marking’ button!

screenshot showing the square of our stepping stone and its location in the laser bed

And then hit ‘Done’.

screenshot of the popup showing to click the done button

Now you will have a square on your grid that you cannot move! This is the location of your stepping stone in the laser bed!

Next, I went to the file icon and scrolled down to import image! Then opened the file called ‘pet memorial stone’, you file will be whichever one you downloaded from the list!

screenshot of the file location for the pet memorial stone

pet memorial stone file open in XCS software

Once the file is open, resize the image to fit within the square of the stepping stone!

While the whole file is selected, make sure and select ENGRAVE instead of SCORE! All files are opened with score as the default setting, you will always need to change this if you are cutting or engraving! When engrave is selected, the lines will fill the areas to be engraved, if this is not how you want it to engrave, you will have to edit your file!

I altered the settings slightly from the default settings for stone coaster, I set the power to 60%, and the speed to 173! I didn’t change the lines per cm!

adjusting the default settings for the pet memorial

Once you have that set, click anywhere outside of your image to deselect the image!

auto measure for the focus distance to be set for the pet memorial stone

Now everything is ready to go! Hit the Process button!

The screen changes to show you what you are sending to the laser! If it all looks good, hit the start button at the top right of your screen!

Once you hit the start button, it sends the file to the laser, and you will see this screen!

Press the button on the front of the machine to start the engraving!

Now you just sit back, relax, and make sure the machine doesn’t catch fire while it is busy doing your work for you! Lol!

the pet memorial stone while it is being engraved by the laser

It did take quite a while to engrave all that, I think it was a little over 2 hours! You can adjust settings to make it take less time! If you max out the power at 100% you can run the machine at a faster speed which cuts back on time!

The machine has done the hard work for you and created this beautiful pet memorial stone to remember your beloved pet!

pet memorial stone completed inside the laser

pet memorial stone - black concrete stone with engraving of the name Brownie and a heart with goat silhouette and hoof print

Now the machine did the heavy lifting, but you have to do the emotional part of laying the stone where you want to remember your pet! I placed mine where my baby Brownie was buried! I want to remember where we laid her to rest, but I know a lot of people who live in the city don’t bury their pets, so placing it in your flower beds or somewhere special in your back yard is great too!

I added the little succulent just as you would flowers on someone’s grave, but I love that it can withstand the Texas heat and not need much water! It perfectly topped the pet memorial and reminds me of a bow at the top of the heart!