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Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

Family Silhouette Keepsake Roundup

Silhouettes were all the rage in the 18th century. Today, not so much.

Oh, but why? Twenty years from now you’ll have thousands of digital photos and more video than you’ll ever want to watch, and it will all be so… ordinary.

Depict your entire family in a framed silhouette on your wall. You capture your kids in a brief moment of their growth, and yourself without wrinkles, blotches or whatever else embarrasses you.

Photo of a mother, father and child sitting in front of a silhouette hung on a wall. The silhouette shows a family equation: the mother, a plus sign, the father, an equals sign, and the child.

[Photo via A Cup of Jo]

Here are a few resources to get your brain churning…

Do-it-Yourself Options

Photo shoting a child's photo being traced, along with the finished silhouettes of a mother, father and child.

Small photo tracing tutorial (shown above, tutorial found at bottom of the linked page)

Photo of four framed silhouettes hung on a wall.

Photo-editing software silhouettes (shown above)

Photo of silhouettes affixed to dinner plates.

Silhouettes on dinner plates (simple instructions)

Photo of a child's silhouette along with a silhouette of the child's hand, dated and framed.

Instructions for the trace-from-a-shadow method (includes hand tracing for extra my-how-she’s-grown goodness)

Photo of silhouettes painted on canvas with the people depicted in white on a black background. A dog silhouette is also shown.

Reverse color and painted on canvas (The color shift does wonders.)

Image of a silhouette of a boy doctored to look like a squid-like creature is crawling on his head.

Advanced ideas for fantasy silhouettes (It helps to know your way around Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator). This artist is the same fellow who designed Thingamababy’s visual look, among many other nice things.

Photo of a silhouette kit featuring an instruction booklet, special scissors and stacks of paper.

Silhouette kits (a step-by-step guide, special scissors and paper) Or, you may pay to have a portrait done by mail.

Do-it-For-You Options

  1. Portraits by Karl Johnson
  2. SimplySilhouettes.com (nice 3-person overlay prints)
  3. Canvas, pendant and pillow silhouettes

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009Decor

« Chop extra baby fingers, toes, tails?
Reason #24601 to Raise your Daughter in the United Kingdom »

Comments

3 Responses to “Family Silhouette Keepsake Roundup”

  1. anastasiav says:

    We inherited Silhouettes of my Great Grandmother and Grandmother, and when I was in elementary school my mother had silho’s of me and her professionally done.

    Its a wonderful keepsake to have.

    February 18th, 2009 at 12:08 pm

  2. Amber says:

    My mother comes from a family with six kids, and they did sillhouettes when her oldest sister was 20 and her youngest 3.

    I love to look at them when we go to their house.

    February 20th, 2009 at 9:16 pm

  3. Linda says:

    I love silhouettes!! I tend to go overboard with them in my house. I also posted a pretty easy tutorial on my blog : http://mytrendytykes.blogspot.com/search?q=very+last+minute+gift+idea

    March 9th, 2009 at 2:55 pm

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