Silhouettes

I am consumed by the thought of doing crafts right now. Something about being super busy always makes me want to take a break and do something crafty. This summer I was especially crafty and made silhouettes. (whoa...I just spelled that right all on my own). I don't know where I got the idea from, maybe I just stumbled upon it as I surfed the internet at work or maybe it was just a weird inspiration, I don't really know but it's turned into one of my favorite things. Oh and it was pretty easy too.

Here's how you do it...
Take some profile pictures. Try and keep the pictures at the same distance so the heads are the same size. These are what my pictures looked like.
Obviously the heads are a little different size in these pictures. It really helps if you have a fancy computer scientist help you format the pictures and make them the size you want but I'm guessing most of you can do that on your own. Also, take into account what size frame you want to display them in. I knew that I wanted both the silhouettes to fit in an 8x10 frame so they were formatted to be that size.
Print the pictures and trace the outline onto tissue paper. I didn't have a working printer when I did this so I just traced the outline right off the laptop screen. It was really nice to have the back light while tracing.
Tape the tissue paper outline to the paper you want your final silhouette to be made of and cut along your traced line through both the tissue paper and project paper. And like magic you have a cut out of your profile!
Here's what my finished product looks like. I went to the trouble of matting them inside an oval. It took forever to figure out but it made the finished product look so much better. Since I didn't really have any process to that I'll let you figure it out on your own.

You can make a silhouette out of any picture you have so you might not have to go to the trouble of taking new pictures. I guess you could do some of an action shot. That would actually be super sweet. Anyway, making silhouettes isn't really hard but it takes some time and patience with cutting. I really love my silhouettes and the memories I made creating them. Happy crafting!
I've started a new project but it's top secret! But more on that later.