Saturday, August 22, 2009

Glittered Silhouettes

Silhouettes always reminded me of Grandmothers houses, where you sat on the divan instead of the couch, ate pot roast for supper and the closets smelled of moth balls.
I have been seeing silhouettes are all over the design blog world lately.
Okay, fine.
But we'll do it my way.
With sparkles.


I actually got this project done in a reasonable time, which normally means less than a year.
I always tend to have far too many unfinished projects.
Don't we all.
I just get excited when I see something new.
And excitement means "Oooh, look at that. I need that."
Which means a new project of course.
If you are one of those people that always finish one project before you start another and have a place for everything and everything in it's place, well then give me a few pointers on how you have become this craft superhero, because I evidently am the screaming weakling about to get devoured by the evil Half-done-pile Monster.
I have 3 (grown) children, but I only did silhouettes of my daughters. Besides I don't think my son would like this idea since when he was little he hated that his clothes always came out of the dryer with glitter on them from all of his sisters stuff.
This was really quite easy and will be going at the entry in their old rooms so I made them in colors to match.

DIRECTIONS
This takes a couple days for dry time if you are painting frames too.

I started with profile photographs.

Blew them up at Kinkos to 200% and 250% to get the right size on the regular copy machine, and did a reverse image on one.
Then cut them out carefully.
Traced them onto brown and black art paper.
Cut the tracing out.

Next is spray glue (Super 77).
Then glitter (Martha Stewart) to match the paper.

Let dry.
Carefully remove excess glitter with a soft brush.
Use double stick tape to adhere to backgroun paper, using a clean paper as a pressing aid.
Place in frames and....
Ta daa!

I took a bajillion photos but there was no way to get one without glare since I don't have a professional studio. I tried inside, outside, bright sun, no sun. So try to imagine the glittery cuteness of them before the glass okay. No glare glass also means no pretty photo. Oh well, they really are cute.
Just an added note...I took the glass off, you could not really see the sparkle, and sparkle was the whole point.

The frames were from Goodwill, $3 each. Not bad frames but sad, sad pictures. Who makes all this crap?

I painted them for each room and rewired for hanging vertically.

7 comments:

Jersey Girl Cooks said...

Such great ideas! My daughter will want to try this.

Anonymous said...

Love the idea of using frames from Goodwill!

Beautiful!

Unknown said...

Long time no hear, trust your vacation was a happy one or two. Arlene and I enjoy your pieces, feel like we are hearing from family

Leslie said...

Oh these are darling! I love the glitter touch

Wendy said...

Thanks for your comment on my blog! I love glitter...and I think it's a great idea to add it to the silhouettes!

Claire Mercado-Obias said...

Cool project! Makes a great present, too!

Olga said...

ooh, that's an awesome idea! very creative.