DIY Cameo Silhouettes Three Ways

Cameos are such a cute way to personalize a nursery.  Jacinda even created a Halloween decoration with her DIY Cameo Plaque.  Since we shared a picture of Stevee's nursery a few weeks ago we've had so many requests asking how to make your own, so we are obliging.  Three ways to get or make silhouettes after the jump...

Option 1:  Buy them. I was on a business trip to Disneyworld six years ago (come to think of it, with Jacinda) and had one made for myself at the park as a silly gift for my husband.  A few years later they were all the rage, so I decided to hang it in the house.  I ordered the other silhouettes from cutarts.  I just emailed profile photographs of my husband and my dog, and my silhouettes came in the mail:

Option 2: Make them on a computer.  Stevee's father is a photoshop whiz, so he used the program to cut out profile photographs of her family's faces, then turned the contrast all the way up to make the images black:

Then Stevee simply took the files to kinkos and had them printed on nice paper:

Option 3:  Make them by hand. For those of us who don't know how to use photoshop (ME), there's another way.  Make them yourself with pencil, paper, and scissors.  It's easy, let me show you how:

1.  Take a profile photograph of your subject and print it out:

2. Cut out the head with scissors. Make sure to keep some nice details like wisps of hair or fancy collars, these look nice in silhouette:

3. Trace your head onto whatever paper you'd like for your silhouette.  I decided to change it up a bit and make mine yellow, I just used a file folder I had laying around:

4. Now cut out your silhouette.  Be gentle so you don't get any bendy marks or rips.  If you have smaller scissors that helps.  Then you can face your silhouette either way.  I had some pencil marks on one side of mine, so I flipped it over:

A cute thing to do if you have two children, is make a different silhouette in another color so you can arrange them like this:

or like this:

5.  Now it's time to mount your silhouette to your backing paper.  Most of the time you will see white or off-white card stock with a black silhouette, but consider going funky and using patterned paper or fabric.  You can try to mount your silhouette with a glue stick but I really don't recommend it, it will probably get a little lumpy, especially over time.  The best way is to use Spray Adhesive, just spray a thin coat to the back of your silhouette(s) and press on to your paper.

I have no pictures of this to show you because the memory card on my camera died and took all the pictures with it.  Poo.

6. Frame and enjoy!