CRAFTASTIC: Silhouette Artwork How To

Father's Day is just around the corner and if your husband is as hard to shop for as mine is, you're probably stumped about what to get him.  I've been racking my brain for the perfect present and I finally decided that this year, I'm going to go a little less materialistic and a little more sentimental.   Here's what I have in mind.

Honey, if you're reading this, please stop.

No, seriously.

STOP!!!

Okay, here we go....

That's right, I'm going to attempt to make two of these silhouette collages for him to hang in his office.  I've read a ton of tutorials on how to do it and most of them involve hanging a piece of paper on the wall, sitting your child on a chair and blasting a light at them so you can trace their shadow onto the piece of paper.  Yeah.  I have two unruly 20 month olds.  Getting them to sit still - let alone long enough to trace their shadow - is not an option.  Luckily, I found a great silhouette how-to on the fabulous site Living With Lindsay that won't require me to super glue my girls to a chair.

In Lindsay's version, you take a photo of your subject in profile.  She used her dog, Jackson.

Then she printed the picture out in the size she wanted for her silhouette and cut it out:

And flipped it over before tracing it onto a piece of black paper. 

Then she cut the image out and mounted it on a piece of white card stock.

So cute!  I love the silhouette of the little boy holding a teddy bear Lindsay also has in her collection.

I also plan on tracing the girls' hands to frame along with their names and the date like in that first picture I posted above.  Silhouette collages would make wonderful gifts for fathers or grandfathers on Father's Day or even as artwork to hang in a nursery.  I'm thinking about searching through my old pictures of the girls to see if I can find some profile shots so I can make one of them as newborns, at one year and so on.  

You can get the full silhouette tutorial here at Living With Lindsay, and if you try this project, send us a photo of how it came out!  I'll post mine once they're done.  Wish me luck!

Images: Living With Lindsay