DIY: Silhouettes
Is there anything more precious than a silhouette of your favorite little people? I don’t know why, but I get butterflies every time I look at silhouettes of my babies. Is it the simplicity of the black and white (my favorite colors)? Is it the timeless elegance of a silhouette in an oval frame? Is it the fact that this is the best rendering of my children I’ll ever possess because it required no eye contact or smiling and taking regular photos of 3 and 4 year old boys is like coaching a synchronized swimming team comprised entirely of cats? I prefer to tell myself it is because my offspring are so gorgeous, but it’s probably the cat one.
The other great part about this project is that once you’ve created your file in PowerPoint, you can print as many as you want. It took me about 45 minutes per kid to get the outlines just right, but now I can print or Cricut these puppies til the cows home in no time at all. Do you love tolerate my children? Then buckle up, because you can expect to be the proud owner of a silhouette for the next major holiday. In all seriousness, these make excellent gifts for grandparents/aunts/uncles/godparents/etc. Oh- and they’re borderline free to make!
You’ll need:
A profile shot of your kiddo/pet/other desired subject
A computer
PowerPoint
Printer/white card stock -OR- Cricut/black & white card stock
Frame
How to make your own DIY silhouette:
Take photo of subject in profile view, on their level. This does not need to be high quality.
Load photo onto computer and paste into PowerPoint
Using video tutorial below, create silhouette:
4. Print silhouette on high quality white paper or card stock (I recommend changing printer settings to high quality print to avoid lines/unevenness, especially if you have a cheap desktop printer like we do).
To cut out of black paper use a Cricut type machine, group all pieces of silhouette file together, right click, and save as image. Import image into Cricut design program and cut out of black paper. Glue onto white paper and frame, or frame floating in double glass pane frame. Be sure that any separate pieces (hair loops, eyelashes, etc.) are welded together so Cricut knows not to cut those out separately from the main piece.
5. Frame! As you can see from the images above, there are many different ways to frame these:
Traditional oval matted frame is from Walmart (I think it was $7)
I explain at the end of the video above how to create the white shadow between 2 silhouettes if you want to combine them like I did in the oval frame
Small square frames are from Walmart (~$4 each) and ribbon is from Hobby Lobby (just attached with hot glue)
Black and white striped frame is from Hobby Lobby (~$10 on the perpetual 50% off frames sale)
Gold floating frame is from Hobby Lobby (~$9 on the perpetual 50% off frames sale)
All but the gold floating frame were printed on a cheap desktop printer. Gold floating frame silhouettes were cut using Cricut machine.
Toodles, tlo
