Card: Valentine's Day - Shadow Hearts

Inspiration:  I remember making silhouettes in grade school, probably for President's Day.  I'd also seen some lovely cameos lately and really wanted to do one of my daughter while she was little.

How I Made the Silhouette:  I tried to do the silhouette like I remember doing in school but the light I had made a very big shadow no matter where I put it and my 3 year old daughter was too squirmy to sit long enough for me to trace her shadow's outline.  So instead, I grabbed my digital camera.  She was very happy to pose for the camera even if I was only taking pictures of her shadow!  She loved looking at them on the camera's display afterwards.  I transferred the images to my computer and chose a few that I liked (I actually used 4 different ones for the cards so they wouldn't all be the same - some had her hair down and some had it up in a pony tail).  I used the free Picasa software to increase the contrast in the image and switch it from color to black and white.  I then pasted the images into Microsoft Word so I could size them how I wanted with the ruler gridlines present (so that the longest edge was no more than 2 inches).  Then I printed the page of images.  I made templates by cutting out the image.  I was going to add them to card stock and then recut but instead just printed them on a slightly stiffer paper.  I traced the template onto black paper and cut out my silhouette to use on the card.

How I Made the Card:  I folded a piece of 5"x8" white card stock in half along the short edge.  I took my black already cut out silhouette and glued it to a heart.  Then I trimmed the edges a little to keep the heart shape.  I glued the heart with the silhouette onto a larger heart.  All the hearts were cut ahead of time using heart templates made from old die cuts.  I glued the larger heart to the card.  I added a smaller heart in the same color as the heart I glued the silhouette to.  I then wrote Happy Valentine's Day on the added little heart.  Inside the card I wrote:  "Valentine hearts and ____'s shadow bring greetings of love, kisses and hugs! XOXO"

Alternatives:

• I could have done the silhouettes in color but wanted to go with the traditional this time.
• With an older child you could cut out the silhouettes on white paper and have them color in their own face and hair.
• Maybe next time, I'll do my husband and me too and we can have a shadow family photo on a card.

Additional Photo:  Below is the image from my computer after editing with Picasa.