Easy Kid-Made Gifts: Silhouette Ornaments

This crafty gift idea is a great keepsake to hang on the tree. It is best for children with good scissor skills. My 8-10 year old Pioneer Girls didn't have too much trouble, but I think the older and more detail-oriented the person, the better the silhouettes will turn out.

In previous years, our Pioneer Girls group had tried making silhouettes the traditional way, using a lamp to cast a shadow on the wall. But when I happened upon Project Nursery's Simple Silhouettes on Pinterest, I knew it would work so much better! The meeting before our craft night, I took pictures of the girls' profiles. Then I printed them out in black and white and taped them to some black card stock. When it came time to make the ornaments, the girls cut around their picture, leaving a black silhouette.
I wanted to make this a pretty ornament, so I decided to mount the silhouettes on pretty scrap paper shapes like House of Hoff. (Another Pinterest find!) Unfortunately, I didn't have any shape punches or stencils and I simply ran out of time to do anything else. So I let the girls create their own shapes. They had a lot of fun and the shapes really fit their personalities. Especially this wild child. :-)

The girls glued their silhouettes onto their shapes and wrote their names and the year on the back. Then, I laminated them to make them sturdy since the scrap book paper was so flimsy.
I used my personal laminator (similar to this one).
I got it for free after a rebate on Black Friday almost a decade ago when I was in college. (And wow, does that make me feel old!) It's very seldom that I use it and I'm still working on the original package of laminating pouches, so the extra cost was negligible.
If you used card stock, I don't think it would be necessary to laminate these ornaments, though it is a nice touch.
These silhouette ornaments are such an easy and inexpensive to gift to a parent or grandparent. If you already had pretty paper and black paper, you wouldn't have to spend a dime on this priceless keepsake! One day down the road - when I can get Kiddo to hold still for a picture - I'll definitely make one for us.
Next time I'll be sharing the photo ornaments I made for Kiddo's grandparents this year... As soon as everyone receives them. :-)
Merry Christmas!