Chic on the Cheap: Silhouette Art Step by Step

Generally, I tend to think about a project for a little while before actually doing anything about it. Not so this weekend.

On Friday I found this post at Imperfectly Beautiful and the photo hit me as a great weekend project. I already had our silhouettes so I just had to do the manual labor. The tutorial on Country Living was for smallish corkboard heads. A good idea but I wanted something larger and I wasn't too crazy about the texture of cork.

Off I went to Home Depot to buy a piece of hardboard for $5. I printed our profiles on multiple sheets of paper, taped together and cut out a template.



Using spray adhesive to stick, on it went.


I followed the edges of the paper template with a sharpie to make the cut marks.


Peeled off the template to reveal the shape.


My plan was to cut that with a heavy duty razor. For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you might have seen a late night frantic question about alternate ways to cut hardboard. I'm sure you have already guessed that the razor didn't work at all. So I had no choice but to borrow my brother's jigsaw. Nervous about losing some important digits (how would I type out blog posts without them??), I forged ahead.

Here is where I would include a snazzy photo of me cooly outfitted in a workman's jumpsuit cutting smoothly in a beautifully organized workroom. Alas, I was in my kitchen, wood braced between two stools, standing a pile of sawdust in my pajamas while sweating profusely as I tried to hold the board with one hand and cut with the other. Not pretty! What should have amounted to certain disfigurement ended up like this


I added some letters and sanded them all down to smooth out the rough spots.


The only spray paint I had handy was semi gloss black so they got a few coats in that.


Not crazy about the finish on them I considered holding off on hanging them until I could recoat in a flat black with a small roller. But then I realized if I wait, these will probably just be sitting in the box room forever like the rest of the things I always mean to hang but never get the chance. So instead I decided these were good enough. Up over our bed they went.


I'm so happy with how it turned out. The big boldness of it really stands up with the large damask print. I think it gives the room a little whimsy too which is fun in a personal space like the bedroom.


And when I get bored of them, its only a few small nails holding it all in place so it won't be too bad to bring down.

Considering the price of $5 (excluding the supplies I already had laying around the house like the paint, paper, sharpie, etc.) I'm really happy with how it all turned out.

But more importantly, now that I have myself schooled in the art of the jigsaw, I know I'm going to be using it again.