How to Make a Framed Silhouette

Mary Gallagher Stout: Hi! I am Mary Gallagher Stout and today we are going to be making stunning silhouettes of our children for Mothers Day. Its a great little craft that you can do with your children, dads! that is you.

What we will need is a piece of cardboard, some scrap paper, a photograph of your child, ribbon, tape, scissors and ultra-fine point marker. The first step in making a silhouette of your child is taking a profile picture of the child. You are going to print up the size that you need in the printer. Take a fine marker and trace along the outside of her body and her profile. This is the template for her silhouette.

So I have outlined my daughter. Now we are going to cut off her silhouette. So if you make a boo-boo and you get some of the black marker on your childs face, don't worry because we are not using this, this is just for you, for your information. So now I have my daughters silhouette. I am just going to trace it on to the pattern paper. Whats really cool is your children's profile, they change every year, they change every day almost. So you can do these annually. Make it an annual production and then see how your child has grown.

Now I am going to cut this out. This is a silhouette, I am using for my project. I want to be sure to get all of the black marks off. Here is my silhouette that I am going to set aside because we are not ready to use it just yet, so lets just set that aside. So we are going to make a frame out of cardboard. So basically, all you are going to do is you are going to gift wrap a piece of cardboard to adorn the silhouette on to. It doesn't matter what size, it just really depends on the size, you are going by eye. So its not a certain size it has to be. Its just like wrapping your gift package. I am going to fold it in. If you don't like the white which I dont, I am just going to snip that off. You just want to get it on there nice and fit, nice and tight because this is our frame, this is our background to which we are going to put a silhouette.

So there is our background. Now we are going to put on a black background to make this pink really pop off. Again, you eyeball it. I like it to be about an inch from top and the bottom. So I am just going to take the paper and fold it down to where I want it. Then you are going to put it right in the middle. So then you have these really cool edges on either side. So I am just going to tape these now. So there is our background.

Then we are going to make it pretty with some liner. We are going to put a little ribbon around it. So again, you just want to make sure the edges are covered to make it a pretty seam. I am going to do it the other side now too. It really frames it and gives it a polished look. Then you are just going to secure them down with tape on the back. So here is our frame that we are going to put our silhouette on. As you can see, the silhouette is a little long. So we are going to cut it to fit in there. So lets say, she is going to go.

I want it to fit inside the ribbon. So I am going to just fold her up to where I think she should go. I cut her down and you can glue or tape, whichever you prefer. I am just going to use tape because glue tends to get bubbly in gross. Actually, if you had a double-sided tape, that would be the perfect solution for this or a spray adhesive because glue is going to get bubbly and wrinkly. You don't want it to bubble or wrinkle.

So now I am putting my silhouette right in the middle. There it is, its our silhouette. To finish everything off, we are going to run a ribbon up through the back and you can add on as many silhouettes you like. If you have a lot of kids or animals, you can do your animals silhouette. I would like to use the funky colors of paper because it gives it that modern twist to a very old way of doing silhouette. You are only limited to your imagination, so go out there and make it your own. Have a happy Mothers Day.