How to Make...Silhouette Pictures

Step 1. Start with two ridiculously cute children. Turn on the television so they will stand very still while you capture a good profile shot.

Ok, seriously. I recently made these silhouette pictures for a Christmas gift. (I don't think this person reads POH, so hopefully I'm safe. Although, if they do I feel certain they will know right away the gift is for them as they have an entire collection of antique silhouette portraits.)

A while ago on POH, I posted the directions from Design Sponge. You can find those here.
But, I didn't really follow those directions. Like always, I made it up as I went and I think they turned out pretty well!!

Here are a few (very rough) steps you can take:

1. I used Picasa to print 3.5x5 size prints of my pictures above. I wanted that size so the sillhouettes would almost fill the 3.5x5 frames I had gotten. I printed them on regular copy paper.

2. I cut out the picture (not the silhouette shape). Then I taped it to my black cardstock. I then used tiny scissors (really for embroidery, guess they're ruined now!) and an exacto knife to cut around the kids' silhouettes. I did my son's first and it took two tries to get it right. I made one cut too quickly and his nose was quite pointy. :)

3. I glued the black silhouettes to off white card stock that was cut to fit my frames. I wrote each child's name and the year in the bottom right corner. Voila!

A few other notes:

-The Design Sponge directions use tracing paper and I can see how this would be very helpful, but I was trying to not spend any additional money!

-The Design Sponge directions also suggest that you follow detailing in the hair for an authentic look. I decided to disregard my daughter's mullet wisps (you can see them in her picture). However, if your daughter actually had hair, I could imagine this would be cute!

-This project only took me about an hour, with my kids awake!