Extremely CUTE and CHEAPIE Mother's Day Gift Tutorial!

This year for Mom's Day I really put my thinking cap on.. Both my mom and mother-in-law have been blessed with many many years of great Mom's Day gifts. So what, oh what is a girl to do??

Here's what I came up with.. an extremely simple, but extremely thoughtful and memorable Mother's Day Gift. The best part is - it's very inexpensive to make, and you're seriously gonna wanna make one once you see how easy this is!!!

The Simple Silhouette

List O' Supplies:

- Black cardstock

- Pretty scrapbook paper

- Scissors

- 5x7 frame

- Profile pic of your subject

- Some type of adhesive (I used Mod Podge, but I think scrapbook adhesive would work better)

- Thin ribbon (not pictured)

- Pencil (not pictured)

- Exacto knife (not pictured)

- Self healing cutting mat (not pictured)

First, you need to take a profile picture of your subject. (For me, this was an epic challenge since my subject was my two-year-old super active lil girl. I finally discovered the easiest time to snag a pic was while she was watching a Disney movie.... haha)

Next, I used Photoshop to convert her pic to black and white and bump up the contrast. Any type of photo editing software (like the one that came with your digital camera) should let you do this. If you don't have access to that kind of software, just use a normal 4x6 print and use a copy machine to make it black and white.

When I sized my image, I made it 3 x 2.5 so it would fit nicely in the 5x7 frame. You can adjust it to whatever size you like. (And I erased a bit of the background so it wouldn't eat up all my printer ink.)

Then, I carefully cut her printed image out using an Exacto knife. I would highly recommend using an Exacto knife for this project. Scissors tend to make the cuts a bit jaggedy, and for a nice silhouette flowing lines are the best way to go.

Once I cut out her image, I used the cut-out as a stencil, flipped it over so I could only see the white side and traced it onto the black cardstock with a pencil. (You may notice the first picture above isn't the one that I used for the final silhouette. I had to go through lots of images before I finally decided on one that I liked, but I was taking pics for the tutorial during all of it.. whoops!)

I then carefully used my Exacto knife to cut out her image. Be sure to take the extra time to cut precisely. It's amazing how much of an impact a small cut can make.

Once I had my purty silhouette cut out, I started on the background. I used pretty scrapbook paper that I found at JoAnn's on clearance. I used the glass from my frame as a template to cut around. Then I cut out a second piece of scrapbook paper about 1/4" all the way around smaller to make a bit of a mat look.

Then I got this great idea to use super thin ribbon to make a bow for the silhouette's hair. I don't think I used any more than 4" for the hair ribbon. I just made a tiny bow out of the ribbon. (If you're making a boy's silhouette, you could use this as a little bow tie instead..)

After I had everything cut out, I used Mod Podge on a Q-Tip to glue everything together because that's what I had on hand. I would recommend using the scrapbook adhesive instead of wet glue, but hey, whatever you have on hand works!!

(Oh, did I mention I made 3 of these?? haha)

I glued everything in this order:

- Hair ribbon to silhouette

- Big background to smaller background

- Silhouette to background

I let the final piece sit for about 10 minutes and then I put it in the 5x7 frame. And ta-da! A super easy, super cute Mother's Day Gift!!

Go make one right now because they are sooooo easy!!!!!

Happy Mother's Day!!!