Silhouette Cameo Project: Using the Trace feature

Many of you are coming from my Halloween Witch Silhouette project. I wanted to show how easy it is to use the Trace feature. Mastering this will allow you to make many of your own shapes, which can save you money! However, most images from the Silhouette Online Store are less than a dollar and they do indeed have witch silhouettes!

This tutorial is tailored to my Witch Silhouette project, however everything you need to know about tracing the outline of any saved picture is here.

1. Set page size to Letter

 2. Drag in your image. When you are tracing and the warning icon shows up you can ignore it most of the time. It is just informing you of low resolution, which might be a problem if we were printing.

 3. Go to the Trace tab and select "select trace area.

 4. Drag trace area over your image. When you let go of your mouse a yellow outline will appear.

5. Unclick High Pass Filter. Move your Threshold and Scale dials until the entire image is yellow and has a nice clean outline. 

6. Click Trace!

7. Click on your image and move it to the side or delete it.

8. Go to the Replicate tab and click Mirror Left. Only do this if you want your witch facing left.

9. Using the Ellipse tool make a 9"x6" oval.

10. On the Align tab you can center to page your oval. Size your witch to desired size. You can also align her center with the oval to see if she fits correctly. 

11. Cut your images on separate pages. BE SURE TO CUT THE IMAGES INDIVIDUALLY. You don't necessarily want a witch shape whole in your oval.  

11. If it is helpful you can use the fill page to color your shapes to get a better feel for what your project will look like!

Good luck!

  

Witch Silhouettes

I have wanted to make a project with face silhouettes for quite some time now. As I contemplated on how I was going to decorate for Halloween, I though of a simple way to showcase a witch's silhouette. This project became the center of my Halloween decorating. I am obsessed with how they turned out!

Where I bought my supplies: 
Spider Web Backing Paper: Hobby Lobby

8.5" x 11" Black Frames: Dollar Store 

Witch Silhouette and backing oval: black and white card stock from Hobby Lobby

This project really was done in a flash!

1. Simply Google "witch silhouette" and choose your favorite. There are two ways to go from here. 

2a. Option 1: For those of you WITH a Silhouette machine start your project by making your page a standard Letter size. drag your image and use the trace tool. For those of you who would like I have a step by step picture tutorial here. 
2b. Option 2: For those of you WITHOUT a Silhouette you can find your image, size it on Word processor and print. Cut out and trace the face on the card stock, then cut it out by hand. 

3. After you have your witch use white card stock and cut out an oval. My oval was sized to leave an inch space of backing on each side.

4. Simple glue your project together and you have a witchy fantastic decoration to help add a bit of magic to your home!

You can read more about my Halloween Mantel here!