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!
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!
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!
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!
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!
***NOTE: Links in this post are affiliate links! Affiliate links are links that pay me a small commission, at no extra cost to you, should you make a purchase! I always appreciate you shopping my links as it allows me to keep creating files and giving them to you all free of charge! Thanks in advance!
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!
- Pet Memorial Stone – Goat
- Pet Memorial Stone – Dog – Husky/German Shepard
- Pet Memorial Stone – Dog – Chihuahua
- Pet Memorial Stone – Dog – Dachshund
- Pet Memorial Stone – Dog – Lab/typical
- Pet Memorial Stone – Cat
- Pet Memorial Stone – Bird
- Pet Memorial Stone – Fish
- Pet Memorial Stone – Lizard
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!
I grabbed my paint and brush and gave it a light layer of Black Magic by Sherwin Williams!
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!
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!
Now hit the ‘Start Marking’ button so we can set the spot that our stepping stone sits inside the laser!
A popup will appear, choose rectangle from the popup!
Then hit the ‘Start Marking’ button in the popup!
You will then move over to the machine and line the laser module cross hairs up on the top left corner!
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)
Next, set the cross hairs to the opposite corner, the bottom right!
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!
And then hit ‘Done’.
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!
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!
Once you have that set, click anywhere outside of your image to deselect the image!
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!
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!
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!
Rest in peace my sweet little lady!
Hope you don’t lose your special pet but if you do, I hope you are able to commemorate their life with a beautiful pet memorial stone!
Thanks so much for stopping by and letting me tell you a little about my sweet baby goat! Hope you have a wonderful day!
Want to save this for later? Pin it!