This is a tutorial for making quick and easy silhouette SVGs from your favorite photos for various cutting machine and other art projects.
The possibilities are endless with silhouette art. The real professional artist will probably bawk at my method here but hey, whatever the works and the easiest right?
I made this shadow box from one of our wedding photos using this silhouette outlining technique.
There are making other things you can make from just plain wall art to ornaments to personalized cards.
Suggested Materials for Silhouette Art Projects
Cardstock – I used cardstock from all sorts of sets I already have. Here are some of my favorites:
- Recollection Assorted Starter Pack – Basic assorted colors, great starter pack, perfect weight for most papercraft projects
- Metallic Shimmer Assorted Set from Amazon – This set is a little lighter in weight but the colors are beautiful in 3D
- Cardstock Warehouse Brand on Amazon – I love the quality of all the matte colored cardstock with Cardstock Warehouse. It is my go-to brand for individual matte colors that I might need
- Stardream Metallics Line – For paper crafts, the Stardream line is the go to for a metallic shimmer finish. It is the perfect sheen to make any project pop. The core is also colored is which hard to find for metallic paper.
- Assorted Pink Set from Paper Paper – This is a must-have for paper flower makers. The variety is perfect to create a bouquet.
- Assorted Purple Set from Paper Paper – This is another must-have for paper flower makers. I love the variety of finishes in this pack.
- Metallic Variety Set from Paper Paper – I don’t know any avid paper crafter that doesn’t use Stardream metallics line of shimmer paper. It is the only metallic cardstock line that I know of that has such variety and has colored cores.
Shadow Box – I think the black or white framed shadow boxes look really sharp especially if you do a black cut out.
Glue Dot Dispenser – I like this option the most to keep things in place without warping the cardstock. I like the Scotch Adhesive Glue Roller the best.
Frame Templates – I’ve included my set of 3 that you see in the photos for free in my resource library.
How to Create Silhouette Cutouts from Photos
Unless you already use a full graphics editing program like Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape, you would normally be left with cutting the physical photo self.
However, I like to use a clever little tool called Clipping Magic to do my work. I actually have both Illustrator and Inkscape but I use Clipping Magic because it is way faster and easier to use.
Clipping Magic is the only fully automated background removal tool that allows you to make editorial changes after the background has been automatically removed.
First, you just upload your image.
It takes a couple of seconds but then it just find the outline for you.
This is where the editing part becomes crucial. So for Silhouette art, you want just an approximate outline so you might want to make some editorial changes. The background removal algorithm is set to find the most accurate.
So here, I want to smooth out the area around the feet.
To do this, I just use the “red” and “green” makers at the top left corner of the screen and tag the areas that I want to keep with green and the areas I want to remove red.
The best part is, Clipping Magic allows me to download this as an SVG.
And now you can have a custom silhouette outline from any photo you want regardless if the background is messy or not.
To use this outline for any art project, just upload the file to you cutting machine interface.
I made a few example projects here using our wedding image.
To secure any of the cutout pieces from cardstock, I would recommend using glue dots on the back side.
These are so easy to make and are the perfect newly wed personalized gift or anniversary present.
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is there a template that i am not seeing for the top image with the roses cut out of the heart? i was trying to make something like this, but cannot figure out how to attach the roses and not get the heart line cut through/inside the roses that are on the line. does this make sense? i love this idea!
Hi, Yes! its called heart silhouette frame and the template is under both the Home Decor and Other section in my resource library.
Thank you!