Sunday, January 25, 2009

Family Profile

Ever since Ella was a baby I've been wanting to make silhouette pictures of our family to hang in our house. So today I finally got my butt in gear and did it. Of course, I haven't done anything besides make the computer file. I still need to print them and find some super fun oval frames for them.

I made them by taking a picture of each person standing in front of a white wall. Anton took my picture, since I can't really take the picture and be in the picture.

Then in Photoshop Elements I used the magic wand to select the white background. I had to use the selection brush to fine tune it a little bit.

Then I inversed the selection and filled it in with black. If you aren't an Photoshop user, that probably all sounds like Greek to you, so just ignore me and move on. It took a little bit of time to do them all, but so worth it in the end.

I did learn that you want girls to have their hair in pony tails. Ella looks so much better than I do with my mammoth looking neckhair. If I weren't lazy, I'd pull my hair up and take another picture. But for now, these will have to do.

I'm going to hang them in my bedroom for now. I don't have any spare wall space in the livingdiningkitchen room. I thought this idea was cute:


But I'd have to write a full equation to figure out how Anton and I managed to have two cute blond kids. So I stuck with the simple traditional with a splash of color. So if anyone knows where I can snag me some oval frames, let me know!

8 comments:

Andrea said...

I love those!! I might have to do those with my family. If I can get my boys and husband to stand still for a picture. Way cute, and I am telling ya, Michaels has some!

The Galan Family said...

These are adorable. I love them. I wish I knew how to use photoshop so I could do it. And I think your hair looks fine. It looks better to have variation. I heard from a friend is making these too that Target has some cute oval frames right now.

Unknown said...

Hi! I love the silhouettes. I'm the friend that told Sarah about the Target oval frames. We're also in the process of making these. I used NieNie's instructions and printed out a picture, cut it out and painted it black. The actual picture still shows on the back side so we can see the faces when I change out the profiles. Anyway, oval frames. Target has them online, but not in the store. Wal-Mart does not have them at all. JC Penney and Sears did not have any. Ikea has one huge oval style, but it was way too big. Pretty frame though, you could always use it for your initial or something to hang above the silhouettes. Michaels did not have any except for an open back frame where you'd also have to buy the backing and the glass insert. I have not checked Joannes or any other stores. We're thinking about checking yard sales or antique shops and then repainting whatever we find. I want to see your finished product! I love the background designs you used. I'm deciding on what we want in the back. So far we're going with plain white, but we'll see.

Des said...

Amanda, I love these. I love your color background too. And I agree with Sarah. I like your hair down. I think the pony tail is great for a little girl. I have heard that it is tough to do it with your hair down. BUT I think you mastered that because yours looks great! I would leave it the way you have it. Have you look online for frames? I am such a google girl when it comes to hard to find shopping. Good luck. and Great Job!!

Sarah said...

Those look great! I agree with everyone about the hair. Yours does look good down. I think I'm going to go to Target.com to look for frames now.

Hadlock Hideaway said...

You're so creative! These look fantastic!

Harmony said...

These are blowing my mind. The backgrounds you picked are fantastic!!!

I love that in the last picture (of some other family) whoever did the pictures was very "generous" with that dude's hair.

I would kill for those--ooooh, do a tutorial for us idiots!

Harmony said...

And by "tutorial for idiots" I mean include lots of how-to pictures...maybe a maze or two...some connect the dots...nothing TOO hard!

HA!