How to Create Your Child's Silhouette Easily

This week is flying by! Yesterday I celebrated my 29th birthday and I still can't wrap my head around the fact that I'm on the very fast downhill to 30. Crazy right? I feel like I should still be 20 with the world before me and a sense of adventure. I'll be diving deeper into what I think about turning 29 on Friday and sharing some things with you. 

As for today, I'm really excited because it is the official kickoff of The Silhouette Creators created by Pocketful of Posies! I've teamed up with some other talented bloggers  to bring you  monthly craft challenges with our Silhouette Machines! So fun right? It was definitely a motivation to get my machine out since it has been put away since moving into my new home, and crank out a project. It will also keep me on my toes and try to think of some new things to create. 

For the March Challenge I'm updating one of my very favorite projects in my home. I found these two oval frames at a local thrift store for $3 for the pair. They were in great condition and had flower pictures in them. I knew they would be a perfect fit for silhouettes of my children so I put them in the cart as fast as I could because around here people are quick to snatch up what you want before you can get to it. I love the brassy antique color that they have and I added an aqua teal chevron print to the back for a fun pop of color. I'm actually contemplating changing out the printed paper because is chevron so last year? Maybe I can get away with it because it is thin and not thick. Something to think about. Also, on a side note... When decorating, do what YOU love, not what is trendy. If you love it and it makes you happy then other peoples opinions shouldn't matter.

Now let's get to the tutorial... Every time I say "tutorial" I think of myself saying it in a Miranda Sings voice. Just sayin'. Focus Teryn. Focus.

// THINGS YOU WILL NEED //

1. Photoshop

2. cardstock any color

3. digital camera

4. spray paint (if you don't have the color paper you want)

5. fabric or paper for background

6. frame

7. glue

// HERE'S HOW //

1. Using a digital camera, photograph your subject from their profile side. I suggest  shooting against a a plain wall or a white paper to make it easier to  remove the background in Photoshop.

2. Open the picture in Photoshop. Use the Quick selection  tool to select the background and then it will outlined.  Go to 'edit' and click 'cut.' The background will disappear and turn black.

3.Next select the background again with he quick selection tool and choose the background eraser on the left side. Erase the background so now it looks checkered. Continue to erase until only the colored head remains.

4. Now deselect the background and select (with QUICK SELECTION) the head. Choose the paint brush and paint all of the head black. NOW YOU WILL END UP WITH THIS BELOW...

 5.You can erase hairs that are out of place or anything that doesn't look right.

6.  Next, save your image for the web and choose the file .PNG

SAVE TO YOUR DOCUMENTS NOT PICTURES!

7. Now open your silhouette software and open you image in your documents.

It will bring up the image but you wont be able to send it to the machine just yet.

8.  Go to the top right corner and open the "OPEN TRACE WINDOW"

it will look like a blue shape outlined in yellow. select it.

9. Select the the area of the your silhouette by dragging your side to make a square over your silhouette.

Then choose TRACE OUTER EDGE.

10. It will then be selected. Then drag your silhouette to the side and delete it.

You will be left with the outline of your silhouette.

11.Place your cardstock on your cutting mat and send to Silhouette to cut

*This is what came out of mine. I used gray cardstock and then spray painted the cardstock with flat black. I ran out of black cardstock. This is the before and after of painting. You can spray the paper with whatever color you want or buy paper in the shade you already love.

This is what they look like after the spray paint.

I then took the 2 oval ornate framed that I found at a thrift store, soaked the glass and scraped off the floral pictures. I then traced the back of the frames and cut out off white cardstock.

This is what the frames did look like, I'm gonna take you to a throw back of my old blogging days, 

This is the only photo that I have of them for the before.

I then placed the black silhouettes on the oval off white cardstock with glue and inserted them into the frames and placed the backs back on. This is how they turned out.

These things are horrible to photograph. The glare on the glass was terrible. As you can see  I updated them with the pop  of color chevron. If I update them again then I will definitely show you.

Now you can check out all of the other Silhouette projects. Which one is your favorite?
** Contains affiliate links.

You can check out these silhouette machines below if you don't already own one and want to take your crafting to the next level. I have my eye on the MINT machine. It makes custom stamps. Amazing right!?

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