There was one other part to the Super Pink Barbie Birthday Party that I really wanted to share but just couldn’t fit in my other post. The silhouette portraits! This was my sister-in-law’s brilliant idea (reminiscent of the famous Barbie doll silhouette logo) but got assigned to me since I’m the family graphic artist. I thought I’d put a post up here about them because I think they turned out really cute.

And since I’m putting a post up, I might as well make it a tutorial. Though I’m thinking that if you have photoshop then you probably already know how to use the pen tool and make your own silhouette without my helpful instructions. But whatever. I’ll put it out there because it might be interesting to ten percent of my readers. The rest of you can just look at Bug’s cute profile.

So here’s how you do it:

First take a really nice profile shot of your victim subject. It’s helpful if you have a nice clean background behind them so you can see the line of their face clearly. It also helps if you shoot the picture in a room full of light and your subject doesn’t wiggle all over the place causing blurrage.

Then open your photo in photoshop and use the pen tool to create a path around their profile. You can do this with all sorts of tools but I like the pen tool because my favorite program is illustrator and the pen feels most comfortable for me. Do whatever you do, just make a path.

Now at this point you could select the inside of the path and turn it black and then select the inverse (shift-command-i) and turn that white and be done. OR you could be like me and export your paths to illustrator because you like illustrator better and would rather not be mucking around in giant rastor files.

This will put an ai file on your desktop (or wherever you have your default files set to go) and then you can open it in illustrator! Ahhhh, now doesn’t that feel better? Simple paths taking up hardly any memory.

At first you won’t see the path because it’s not selected or colored any color. Just do a select all (command-a) and turn the shape black. Now you can resize your silhouette to fit your frame. Our frames were 5×7 so I put two silhouettes up on one letter-size page. I decided not to print the silhouettes out in black because my mom’s printer was running low on black ink so I printed them out in pink (15% magenta) so I could see the shape clearly but use as little ink as possible.

Now that you have the print-out you can put it on a black piece of paper and cut out the silhouette using the print-out as your pattern. This part is tricky and will require some swift paper-cutting skills around tiny noses and hair tendrils. But you can do it and the end result is rewarding!

Hot pink frame optional.

I bought a gocco printer off Etsy about a year ago but never got around to trying it out. So I brought it down to Bethany’s thinking I’d have a chance to play with it in her big rambling house. It’s a lot easier to craft down here with her big spacious kitchen table and her big bright windows. My house is nice and bright too but it doesn’t clean up as easily as Bethany’s does.

I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the light colored linoleum floors. Maybe it’s the acres of counter space. Maybe it’s the fact that there is a washer and dryer downstairs in the garage only steps away… Or maybe it’s just that I can let Bug wander the house and be as noisy as she wants while I craft because Toby is not here working in the next room. Whatever it is, it gives me a lot of freedom to be as crafty and messy as I want. And when I’m done, it’s a cinch to clean up!

The other reason I was finally up to trying out the Gocco is that CC is here visiting and she’s very helpful in reading directions. I’m terrible about reading directions. I’m a speed reader and I tend to skip ahead when I get bored and I miss all kinds of important details. If I was doing this alone it would have taken me hours to figure out but not with CC around!

While I made up a design on my computer and then ran off to a nearby Kinkos to make a Xerox print (the Gocco only works with carbon print outs and my ink jet printer is not carbon) CC read the 20-or-so page manual.

When I got back we attached the flash bulbs, burned our master print and then we were in business!

There were a few kinks to work out of course like the fact that using two different color inks too close together can run into each other… But this is the best way to learn.

I should have designed this differently with more space in between my color spots OR printed it in two passes. I’m definitely going to do another design with color spots on the first press and then detail on top on a second press. I’d have to burn two masters for that idea. Which is fine but masters are a bit expensive.

This probably makes no sense to most of you reading. When I do it again, I’ll do a step by step type post. Not that I need to. There are plenty of them on the web. But it’s fun so why not share?

I decided to skip the two-color printing and just print in red. It was a lot easier. The ink is oil-based so clean-up can be a bit of a pain. Of course I didn’t have any paint thinner on hand so you can imagine me with smudges of paint all over and madly wiping it off on mountains of paper towels. Next time I’ll be way more careful and way more prepared. (Don’t worry, Bethany, your house is smudge free!)

But there will definitely be a next time because this was loads of fun. Stay tuned for some cards in my shop!

For some reason I’ve been on an orange kick lately. I love orange and pink together. My mom recently made some orange flags for her shop (they’re not there yet—she’s waiting for me to photograph them properly) and I’ve been day-dreaming up an orange and pink soda pop-themed party ever since. I may just have to host a little faux party to get it out of my system.

Can you see it? A table set in all orange and pink? A little round double layer orange cake with a great big hot pink flower on top? Bottles of orange soda with pink straws…. these are the things my dreams are made of!

Since May is quickly filling up with real birthday parties, here is a calendar to write them in on! If anybody wants to host their own little pink and orange fizz-pop party, email me and I’ll share my invite with you.