DIY Silhouette

I want to re-do our gallery wall in our living room, so I've been thinking about some ideas.  One idea that kept coming to mind was a silhouette of Ava Kate.  I really wanted one, so of course, I did-it-myself!

First, find or take a picture to use for your silhouette.  I used one of AK's newborn photos that my awesome friend, Nicki took.

Then, cut out the the head and upper body, and trace it onto black paper.

Lastly, cut out the silhouette on the black paper and frame it against a white background.  Taa-daa!!

As if you actually needed a tutorial to do that... but just to show how easy it was! :)

This is posted on Hope Studio's link party Tutorial Tuesday!  Go check out other tutorials on this cold, snowy day! :)

How to Cut Out Perfect Letters

Do you find yourself wondering how people cut out the most perfectly made letters?  Don't have time to waste stenciling out and cutting up words?  Don't have the right size stencils?  Let me blow your mind.

Before I do, I have to give all the credit to my friend and mentor Nicki.  She taught me how to do this and I'm waiting on her to start a blog... but until she does, let me help you transform your life.  Okay, maybe it's not that serious... but you will be snipping away and creating letters in no time.

First, you need to find the color paper you want.  Then, cut your paper into equally sized rectangles... this is the key to making your letters all the same size.

Now, almost every letter is either vertically or horizontally symmetrical.  You will fold your rectangle appropriately, and then cut away the negative space.

To make round letters look even, fold them in half and cut round corners.

This method will work for every letter except F, G, J, L, N, P, Q, R, S, Z.  Ok, so that's a lot... but most of those are pretty easy to do... 

• Make your F like an E and then cut off the bottom.
• Make your G like a C... but add in the middle part.
• Round off your J at the bottom by folding it hotdog style and then cut away the rest.
• An L is easy.  You can figure it out ;-)
• For P & R just fold the top half in half and pretend you're making the top of a B
• Z & N are a little tougher, but just cut away the negative space without folding it.
• Fold S in half and round off your corners, so they look even.  Then cut away the negative space without it being folded.

Here are some step-by-step visuals:

Cutting out letters like an A, an E, and an I are pretty basic.

Cutting out letters like P is a little trickier, but it's still follows the symmetry principle.  Just fold the top half in half and do your thang.  :)

Some letters don't really follow the symmetry principle... Like an "N."  Don't sweat it though, just cut away the negative space without folding it in half.

Some letters require you to use the symmetry principle to round the corners first, and then cut away the negative space without folding.  Check out the G and the S.

  

Now, get to practicing!  You know you want to! :)  Can't wait to see what you do!

PS.  I joined in with Hope Studios' link party!  Check it out!

How to Paint Perfect Stripes

We get comments all the time from family, friends, the furniture deliverers, carpet cleaners, you-name-it that go something like, "Oh my gosh!  Look at these stripes!  They look awesome!  How long did they take you to do?!?!"

Internet, let me let you in on a little secret.  It looks way harder than it actually was... but Shhh.  It's a secret.  I plan to continue basking in the glory of our amazing hall and letting people think I'm just-that-awesome.  Ha!  But, since you're my awesome blog readers, I'll teach you how! ;-)

What do you need:

• 2 paint colors (if you aren't using the color that's already on the wall as one)
• A paint brush/ roller
• Lots of painter's tape
• Yardstick
• Pencil
• Scrap sheet of paper
• Mr. Clean Magic Eraser

Our hall was already white, so all I had to do was paint the dark color.  If you have to paint both colors, go ahead and paint the entire wall with the lighter color first.  (It's easier to paint dark over light than it is to paint light over dark.)

After that, do the hardest part, which is the planning.  Get yourself a scrap sheet of paper and sketch out your wall.  Measure where your chair rail is and draw it in.

Then, think about how many stripes you want to have roughly and do a quick calculation of about how many inches high each stripe should be.

Quick tip:  Measure the area above your door so you don't end up with an awkward little strip of a stripe right above the door casing.

Now, I knew that I wanted my top and bottom stripes to be the darker color since the molding was white.  Otherwise, the top and bottom stripes would appear to be bigger than the rest because the molding would blend in with the white stripe.  Same goes for the chair rail - I wanted it to be nestled between beige stripes so it wouldn't seem bigger than the other stripes.

Once you've perfected the measurements and placements on your sketch, get a ruler/yardstick and make tick marks on the wall at the appropriate height in the corners and about every 2-3 feet.  I found that spacing the tick marks out (as opposed to putting them so close together) helped me tape a neater line.

Then, take your handy dandy tape and with one, really long piece, tape from corner to corner using the tick marks as a guide.  The key to a nice straight line = using one long piece of tape.

Then, carefully pull off your tape while the paint is semi-wet (it'll be easier to fix mistakes) and voila!

Make sure you go in with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser and clean off your tick marks.

See?  Totally not that hard!  :)

*I linked up with Hope Studios Tutorial Tuesdays!  Check it out!