Enlarged Family Silhouette cut-out

This project, unfortunately, took me FOREVER, but it was well worth the wait. The idea came to me about two months ago and I finally finished it. Don’t you hate how life gets so stinkin’ busy. Normally I only stick with projects that take me an hour or two, not a month or two. But, I’m in love with this family silhouette. I love having unique and personalized home décor, and this obviously fits in that category.

I started out with a family picture that would work as a silhouette. Luckily you can’t see the faces or what is really going on in the actual silhouette cut-out. In the silhouette, it looks like little B man (on the right) is being cute and just looking up at me. In reality that little stinker is trying to get away and right after the picture threw a big ol’ fit.

I edited the picture in Power Point (I don’t have anything fancier) and removed the background.

In the beginning I didn’t know how I was going to get this little picture into a 3’ x 3’ size. I thought about cutting it with the Silhouette out of cardstock (in many pieces to get it big enough), but that just sounded painful. Luckily my friend has a projector that is perfect for projects like this. (Thanks Jennifer!!) So in the end, I didn’t really need to remove the background, but it did make tracing it easier.

It only took about 30 minutes to trace it onto the MDF 3’ x 3’ board. So easy! I may need to add a projector like this to my collection.

Then came the fun part! I cut our family out with a jigsaw. Before this project I had actually never used a jigsaw. Growing up I worked in the shop a lot with my dad, who was a carpenter for most of his life. Grant and I now have as many, or possibly more, tools as he did and I just love it! Here is another tool I can check off my list of experiences.

There was only one casualty in the process. Little B man’s arm broke at the shoulder. Thank goodness for glue! Next time I make a huge family silhouette cut-out I may need to use a different type of board. This MDF is pretty rigid and I was very nervous the whole time that it was going to break more than it did.

I painted it with a couple coats of black Rustoleum spray paint and one coat of clear matte finish. It ended up being just under 3’ tall and wide.

Now it sits on top of our cupboards in the kitchen. I still have more decorating to do up there, but this is the main piece I’ve been waiting for! Talk about personalized home décor! I love it :)

 

*sorry about all the splotches on the pictures. That’s frustrating!

 

 

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