It's no secret that black cats are considered unlucky. Personally, I think they're rather beautiful; they're silhouette in particular is graceful and striking. So how do you make one? There's plenty of silhouette vinyl-art stickers you can buy, black cats included; but they can be quite an expensive investment, especially if you only need the cat for a day or two rather than as a constant companion. You could also download a clip art graphic, blow it up to A4 and print it out; but that's a lot of toner gone. There's one other way I came up with, and here's how to do it.
- Find an A4 sized colouring-in page of a cat; it will have bold black outlines, no color or shading, and minimal detail. I used my own graphic from the free Halloween dice printable, but anything large will do, regardless of whether it's cartoony or sophisticated.
- Print it out or photocopy it on to scrap white paper.
- Cut around the outside of the shape; cutting wide around skinny details like whiskers. This is now your 'template'.
- Lay the template on top of an A4 piece of black cardboard and either hold it steady or use a few dots of temporary tac to keep it in place.
- With a white pencil (hooray - finally a use for these things!) trace around the template.
- Now cut around the white line you drew; again, being careful with things like whiskers.
Now. Yesterday I promised both a black cat project and some exciting silhouette news. I've done the black cat, here's the news; on the 15th of February, straight after Valentines Day, I'm going to launch a new set of printpapers for sale; personalised silhouettes; they're perfect for parties, scrapbooking, or framing. To celebrate, I'm going to get my two daughters to pick out a picture from the followers pages of this blog and facebook. So for your chance to win one of 2 sets of personalised silhouette printpapers, with you or your family's silhouettes; simply join the Partycraft Secrets blogspot and facebook page. Good luck!
