s-i-l-h-o-u-e-t-t-e

December 7, 2010

Not the easiest word to spell. Chris ALMOST got it right in my impromptu spelling bee. Luckily, it’s a lot easier to create a silhouette than to spell it. (i-t…I know that joke.) I had one small space left on Greta’s wall that I wanted to fill. So I filled it with her cute profile.

We started with a little daddy-daughter photoshoot in front of a window during the daytime. This took out most of the work because it already created a dark outline of her.

In fact, if you prefer a low-tech approach (or don’t have Adobe Photoshop), and you have some black construction paper handy, you could stop here and:

1. Print your profile photo out to the size that you want your silhouette to be (even if it gets blurry from enlargement it doesn’t matter)

2. Cut out the baby head so you’re left with just a profile and no background (yes, it will feel weird to cut off your baby’s head)

3. Trace your head cut-out onto black construction paper with a pencil and then cut the shape out one last time.

I chose to open the pic in Photoshop and do it all in there. My hands were NOT ready for cutting, I didn’t have black construction paper, and maybe I am a bit lazy, too.

Once in Photoshop, I cropped the photo and increased the contrast as far as it goes.

Then I erased the background

And filled in the areas that weren’t completely black. At this point, I realized that those, once cute, arms in the picture were looking weird (no reflection on my love for you Greta-girl!)–so I did away with them.

Which looked much better, right?

Lastly, to give it the classic, finished silhouette look, I cut off some of the bottom, creating a curved line that fit with the rest of her rounded features.

I googled images of “stripes” and put them behind my little girl, and printed it out. If you have cute scrapbooking pages, you could easily cut out your silhouette and paste it on that–but, again–not ready for scissors over here. It totally completes her walls, which we’ll peak at tomorrow!

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Patty Cakes says:
December 7, 2010 at 3:36 pm
Will you make one for Koler?
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Ryan and Meagan says:
December 7, 2010 at 3:36 pm
That is on my list but I don’t have the program to do it so I’m trying to find other wayssss to make it happen. NOT so easy. But YES I love it and Greta is the CUTEST.
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