Crafty-ness: Creating Victorian Silhouettes

If you read my "Hey, I'm not dead yet" post that marked my return to blogging, then you know that there are some big changes coming my way soon.

Along with having to change the way I eat, buy a few pairs of pants, and other not-so-fun things about pregnancy, I've also gotten a chance to do the fun things.

Mainly, planning the nursery.

When we started trying to have a baby, the Bear and I decided on a Peter Pan theme.  But not the Disney Peter Pan, but the original Victorian Peter Pan.  

So we've been trying to come up with ideas that would make a Victorian themed nursery, but also be safe and not break the bank.  

In my head I had lots of expensive ideas built up, and eventually I had to let a lot of them go.  

But one touch that I knew would bring the theme to light and be fairly inexpensive was the artwork on the walls.  So after some searching online, and remembering an art project from way back in the day, I settled on creating some silhouettes.

Silhouettes were a very popular art form during the Victorian era, and can be quite beautiful.  I was hesitant to use my own profile though, seeing as I've never been able to produce a Gibson Girl hairstyle. 

So I decided to create Peter Pan themed silhouettes.  This project is fairly easy, but time consuming.  Warning: If you're a perfectionist, you might want to buy some extra paper just in case.

Supplies:

• Printouts from online with a clear silhouette.  Ignore colors, just look at the shape.
• Paper for your background.  I used scrapbooking paper in a pattern.
• Paper for your silhouettes.  Make sure this is heavy duty paper. Cardstock works great.
• Scissors
• Exacto knife

Steps:

1. After you find your pictures online, print them out (regular paper is fine) and cut them out. Here are mine after I cut them out.  You can see some areas have more detail than others. This isn't as big a deal right now, but may cause you headaches later.

2. Trace your cutouts on your cardstock.

3. Using your scissors, cut out the basic shape.  Use your Exacto knife to cut out detailed areas (like Hook's Hook and the spaces between Peter's arms).

4. Center and glue on your background paper.  Frames with a mat really make this project pop.  

This sounds fairly simple, but it can take a while to find the right shape and to get your silhouettes looking just right.  

Here are some pictures of the final products:

The room still looks a little barren, but once we get the crib and curtains in place, it'll start to come together.