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Easy DIY Bird Art

by on February 22, 2012

1. I needed some artwork for the nursery.

2. We’ve had two blank paint canvases sitting around the house for years.

As you might suspect, necessity bred invention.

Remember my tutorial for making silhouettes? Well I used the same technique to make some bird art for the nursery.

I found a bird I liked online, printed it (obviously while running out of printer ink), and cut it out.

Then I traced the cutout bird on thicker patterned paper and cut that out.

Next I used foam adhesive dots to secure my background sheet of paper to the canvas, and then more adhesive dots to place the bird on top of the background paper.

To finish it off, I hot glued some gray ribbon around the edges of the canvas to hide the staples.

The total cost was $6. That’s $4 for foam adhesive circles and $2 for paper. (Remember I’d had those canvases lying around the house for a long time, but I think they’re pretty cheap if you need to buy them.)

Little cost. Big impact!

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How To Make Silhouettes

by on December 31, 2011

There is something nostalgic and classic about cameo silhouettes—especially of children, with their sweet and youthful profile features.

I’ve long had inspiration for this project, but motivation came when my friend Shelley (also my 9-5 boss!) made silhouettes of her three children.

Adorable, right?

I went nuts for them, so she made me a silhouette of my own little guy. (Thank you Shelley!)

Deciding these would make great gifts for the grandparents, I had to try it myself.

Here’s the very easy tutorial for making your own.

1. Take a profile headshot of the child….or adult….or pet…or whatever.

(So cute, my little nieces!)

2. Insert the photo into a plain old Word document and size it based on your frame. I used a 9×13 frame matted to an 8×10 opening in which I wanted a 5×7 silhouette. So I sized these photos to no more than 5.5″ wide by  7″ inches tall.

3. Print the photo and cut out the profile. I printed mine in black and white because it was easier to follow the line and cut more cleanly.

4. Trace the cutout onto the thicker paper that you will want to use in your final piece. I used a thick white linen textured paper that I purchased by the sheet at A.C. Moore for 64 cents. (Cardstock would be too thick for cutting with scissors but I suppose you could use an Exacto knife and it would work fine.)

5. Choose your background paper and tape it to fit the opening of your frame or mat. I was making a set of three grandkid silhouettes for my parents, so I chose three coordinating papers that would work with my parents’ color scheme.

What, you didn’t know I worked next to a Play-Doh factory?

(Hey, any volunteers to come organize that disastrous pantry back there?)

6. Affix your silhouette to the background paper with raised foam adhesive circles. This gives some dimension to the piece and adds a little bit of shadow once the glass front is inserted in the frame.

Voila!

Here’s the final set of three. You can tell that my niece on the far right is the youngest because her profile is proportionally smaller than the other two. (The two on the left are 3 years old and the one on the right is 2 years old.)

The nice thing is that once you have your pattern, you can pop out a bunch of these really quickly. I made several more as gifts for other family members and then couldn’t resist making this one for myself.

It was the finishing touch to my Boys Room Makeover.

Try it…and then send me pictures of how it turns out. I promise you it took longer for me to write this How-To post than it did to make the silhouettes!

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