How to Make A Victorian Silhouette

Hello

Today I am going to talk you through how to make your own Victorian silhouette using a photo and some black paper. I decided to make one for each member of our household because I thought it would be cute and would be fitting for our Victorian house.

To make your own silhouettes you will need photos taken side on (in profile), black paper, white paper, glue, photo frames of your choice (mine were from here) and scissors or a craft knife.

The first step is to cut your backing paper to size. The easiest way to do this is by taking out the piece of paper that comes with the frame and cutting around that.

Next you need to make sure your photos will fit into the frame. The way to do this is to use photo editing software. Create a blank canvas and put in the measurements of the aperture of the frame, then import your photo and resize it to fit in this space. On photoshop elements go to file>new>blank file. This bring up a window that allows you to put in some dimensions. Change the measurement from pixels to either inches, centimetres or millimetres (which ever is easiest for you) and put in the dimensions of your frame. Then click ok. Open a new window with the chosen photo then click and drag it into the blank file. Use the free transform tool  (image>transform>free transform) to resize the photo. Then print it.

Stick the photo onto some black paper using paper adhesive e.g. Pritt Stick

Carefully cut the photo (that is now stuck to black paper) out using either scissors or a craft knife.

Put the white paper you cut out earlier into the frame (minus the protective glass that come with the frame). You can then make sure the black head you have cut out is perfectly positioned within the frame. Glue the back of the head and stick it into position. Then take the silhouette out and replace the glass.

Silhouette complete!