Making Silhouettes

I love my kids as all parents do. I wanted to capture that precious young age. Beyond a photo, what better way than a silhouette? They're most often seen in classic black and white, but I wanted mine to match our bedroom colors and decor.

Here's how they turned out.

This is what I started with.

I found my frames at Roberts Arts and Crafts in the clearance for about $6 each. I removed the wallpaper material and modge podged the silhouette images. The silhouettes are easy. I took a profile picture, cropped it accordingly, and printed it on a sheet size paper. I used the picture as a pattern to cut the silhouette out of scrapbook paper.

Silhouettes of my three little darlings hanging on the wall opposite our bed--much better to look at than our TV.

Faux Fish Tank for Great Idea Day

I just read on Infarrantly Creative's blog she is having a great idea day and anything goes. This idea comes from a while back. I decorated my son's room with an ocean fish theme. Rather than subject some innocent fish to having me as an owner, we decided to go with something other than the real thing. So here is our faux fish tank. I found a spare cabinet door with pebbly glass in the "As Is" section of Ikea for $2. All it needed was blue paper, some fun foam greenery, and pictures of fish and coral printed on photo paper. There are tons to choose from with a simple Google search. My youngest son loves to have me hold him up to the wall so he can look at all the fish. Not quite as good as the real thing but a close second.

Spring Easter Shadow Box

I found this craft challenge at Living with Lindsey and thought this little project I did would be a perfect entry. I think it qualifies, but if not that's ok and here's a fun idea for Spring Decor. I used a plain wood shadow box (claimed from my stash of clearance sale and thrift store frames in my basement). I used several colors of craft paint, crackle paint, a scrap of linen fabric, and little twine basket pieces (a thrift store find from last spring). I had all of these items on hand.

I went to the Wood Connection (a local wood piece store) and purchased plain wood eggs at $.25 a piece. I painted the eggs (using a toothbrush to create the speckling), hot glued them in the baskets, and sewed the baskets to the linen fabric. Then I wrapped the linen fabric around the backing that came with the frame and placed in the painted glass shadow box.

Total cost: $4.50 for the eggs