I have always loved the silhouettes you see of people and they have always intimidated me. But I decided that I needed to get over my fear and figure out how to make a silhouette much easier to make and bam I decided to have a go at making them on my Cricut Explore
The fact that is was coming up to my MIL’s birthday really spurred me on to give silhouette making a go.

How to turn a photo into a silhouette using picmonkey
Firstly I took pictures of the boys in profile against a light coloured wall.
Then in picmonkey using the posterise setting I transformed it, using two colours and 100% detail.
Mini had a shadow due to his hair, so using the clone tool I erased it out and pow I had a pretty decent silhouette.

Uploading an image to the Cricut Design Space

Go to design room and start a new projects. Then click on the upload on the left hand side and then we want basic upload for the silhouette.

Before you upload the image you get a page showing you the steps for uploading, just click on to “continue to step one”.

You need to then click on browse at the lest and pick the image you want to upload, which will appear in the box.

Click on simple image and then continue to step two

You image will them appear larger on the screen in a square with the sides hatched out. This is the area that is going to be empty.
As our image is high contrast, we are able to just use the select & delete wad on the areas we want to disappear

Once we only have the part of the image on screen we want, then it is time to continue to step 3 which is saving the image

This is where you give your image a name and tags (especially if you are going to upload lots of images).

Then you get to tick the image you want on your design space to work on and insert image

Then the silhouette is in your design space to edit the size if you want to. I bought my frames from Dotcomgiftshop and they were under £6 each as I wanted a traditional style to go with my MIL’s home. The card was matt black from Viking Direct and is 240 gsm heavy cardstock.

The beauty of the new Cricut Explore
is it does a fantastic job of cutting all the minutiae making the silhouettes look so fantastic.

We love these so much, that I made another set for our home and as I had already imported the images to Design Space it took all of five minutes to load the paper and print them off.

What a great idea! And another fab way to use the Cricut Explore! Hope your MIL likes them x
What a neat programme those silhouettes look amazing as well! x
Fantastic! I’m pinning this for when I get a cricut, sadly they had sold out when I tried to order so I am patiently waiting!
I love these. I’ve always wanted to try making these but never knew where to start.
What a great idea. I have a silhouette cameo and I really should use it more x
didn’t know you could do this with a cricut! these are really sweet.
I love this idea! I really have to have a go at this! Thanks for sharing
Your CommentsWhat an ingenious idea! Am definitely going to try this 🙂 I actually love the posturised version first!
What a great tutorial, even I could do this. It’s a great effect
Very cool Jen
What a great idea, I love that. Would love to give it a go!
First time I have heard of Circuit Explore but it seems great.Those silhouettes are fab!
How cool are they? x x x
So simple and effective! I’m going to give this a go!
What a cute idea! Love it!
What a brilliant idea! I’ve not discovered Circuit Explore as yet, sounds like a great little package. I am sure that your MIL will love these 🙂
oh wow, looks great, i actually didnt know that you can do it, thanks for sharing
aw thanks for sharing i love this idea , may do some of these in my new house wuld look lovely x
I love this idea – never heard of this before so off to check it out
Your Commentswow what alovely gift idea.
These make lovely presents , such a nice way to make personalised gifts.