It’s the most wonderful time of year and I’m back with a quick DIY for the holiday season!
Doing silhouettes of your kids as they grow up is classic decor. My grandma still has ones of my dad hanging in her house. When my cousin posted a picture of one she had made of her son, I took a screenshot and decided to make my own, instead of buying one, like a true maker 😉
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DIY Silhouette Ornament
What you’ll need:
- Profile photo of person
- Black iron on
- Cricut Explore Air 2
- Weeder tool
- Wood slice
- EasyPress 2
- EasyPress Mat
- Drill
- Drill bit (I used 9/64″, but up to you)
- Ribbon
To create the silhouette, first you need a picture of the person’s profile. The picture I had was of Will on Hunter’s chest – so no solid background by any means. In Preview, I used the Lasso selection crop tool to go around his head and create a little bust at the bottom as well. It doesn’t have to be perfect, you’ll clean it up in Design Space, but you’ll want it to be close.
This is what my photo looked like after I cropped it:
Now open Design Space and create a new project. Upload your photo. Since it’ll be 1 color at the end, you can choose “Simple” for the complexity. On the next screen, use the eraser to clean up the image as needed. I made sure the lines around his head were smooth and cleaned up smaller areas like his eye lashes, nose and lips.
Finally, save the image as a “cut” image. It should show up as a solid silhouette image.
Resize the silhouette on your canvas to fit the wood slice nicely. Mine needed to be ~2″ tall max. Cut your image on black iron on, making sure to mirror the image first.
Weed the excess material away, then place on your wood slice and apply heat with your EasyPress using the Heat Guide settings.
Drill a hole through the top of the ornament for the ribbon. I used a 9/64″ bit, but you may want to go larger for wider ribbon. Thread some ribbon through and you’re done!
You can optionally add the name & year on the back with iron on so you’ll be able to look back each year.
I’m planning on making one of these each year to watch how he grows and can’t wait to add them to our tree. It’s also our first ornament for him on our tree. I can’t wait to experience his first Christmas with him!
