Silhouettes

Do you know who this is?

That's right! Jane Austen! You know there are self-help groups out there for us nuts, right? For those of you who didn't know who this was, you'll be juuuust fine!

There's something elegant and sophisticated about a silhouette. They are so personal, individual, artistic, timeless...

... and not too hard to do yourself if you have the time and patience!

These are "ornaments" I made for my mom for Christmas. What I did for these was take a profile picture of each of my kids, sketched their profile onto drawing paper, outlined and filled in the sketch with black and then scanned them into our computer. If you don't have an artistic cell in your body, you could crop your picture online to the size you want, then use thin tracing paper to trace their outline. Then you could cut that out (either with sharp scissors or a craft knife) OR photocopy it onto white paper after filling it in. I'm still playing with different techniques. If you know of a better way, please let me know!

If this sounds too hard, then just send me photos of your kids and I'll do it for you! I am having so much fun over here trying out this new hobby that I'd love to have more practice!

Here are some more I did using decorative paper:

I chose paper that represented each child. My oldest likes technology, so I went with robots. My middle child likes music, and my youngest likes cars.

I also created some tiny silhouette ornaments for my sister-in-law's birthday. She was in Afghanistan at the time so I wanted to make them really small. She's got 4 kids: 2 older boys and twin girls who are 1.

My next project? Try out silhouettes with chocolate or on a cupcake. My youngest is getting baptized/dedicated at our church this winter, so maybe I'll try it for that occasion. Is that weird to eat an image of your own son? I might have to think about that...