Decoupage Silhouettes

Paper crafts are probably my favorite type of craft to do. And while I love scrap-booking and making cards, playing with Mod Podge is the most fun. I usually decoupage on wooden letters or shapes, like this:

I made my daughter's name to go above her bed. I usually think it looks a little flat with just paper, so I accessorize with buttons, ribbons, or like you see above I also added miniature picket fences on the letter "h."

Recently, I decided to try to decoupage on canvas. I ended up making mini art pieces for my niece's room. These canvases are tiny (4"x5"), so it was a really quick and easy project. 

I have wanted to do silhouettes of my girls for a while now, and since I had some extra canvases that I got on sale at Hobby Lobby (or as my daughter calls it, "wobby wobby"), I thought I would try it on those.

The process is really quick and virtually impossible to mess up. All that you need is a profile shot of your subject, tracing paper (I used wax paper), sharp scissors, decorative paper, mod podge, and a canvas. I also added chip-board letters for extra dimension.

Basically, start by cutting your background paper to the size of the canvas (remember to include space to fold it around the edges). Then paint on the glue, either to the paper, canvas, or both. Your hands will be covered with mod podge by the end of this project anyway, so I usually help the adhering process by pressing any bubbles down with my hands. 

The glue dries very quickly, so you can move on to the next steps right away. 

After tracing a photo of the profile shot, cut out the tracing paper, trace onto the decorative paper and cut it out. 

Go ahead and glue away! Oh, one thing I forgot: always glue both sides. I glue the wrong side of the profile to adhere it to the canvas, but I also glue the entire canvas on top so it has a nice glossy seal.

I added little bows in place of the area my girls wear barrettes (for "dimensionality;" I like to make up words). Then I played around with coordinating paper, and decided to overlap these two.

Then I added the decoupaged initials, and I am finito!

If you click on this picture to enlarge, the "g" picture looks very shiny and you can see a lot of brush strokes. That is due to the fact that I am incredibly impatient, and wanted them hung ASAP, whether it was dry or not! But, once it dried, it had a nice smooth, even finish.

One more tip that I have done in the past, but didn't do on this project, is to tint the decoupage with craft paint. This looks especially nice if you are going for a "shabby" look and tint the mod podge with a little bit of brown paint. The finish ends up looking antiqued. 

Do you have any decoupage craft ideas? I would love to hear them!