How To Make Silhouette Art With A Cricut – An Easy Vinyl Cricut Project!

Instructions

Step 1: Take or pick a photo

It's easiest to do this project with a photo that has high contrast between the subject and their background. This will make removing the background and turning the image into a silhouette, so much easier!

Taking a photo for the silhouette

So, if you are taking a photo specifically for this project, I recommend having hte subject (bet it your kid, your pet, a parent etc) stand in front of a background that is a solid (or mostly solid) color and that is very different from their skin color and clothing color.

Next, you will want them to turn to the side so that you are taking a profile photo of them against the background you chose. You may need to direct them to tilt their chin up or down to get the desired effect. Unless you're doing a pet silhouette - that's a bit more difficult to control!

Using an existing photo

If you can't take a custom photo of the person or pet you want to make a silhouette out of, that's ok! I'll show you how to work with a lower contrast photo.

That said, if you have a photo existing photos to pick from, try to pick one that follows the guidelines in the paragraphs above. It may just be a bit harder to remove the background otherwise but still doable!

Step 2: Remove background from photo

Next we're going to want to remove the background from our image.

There are a number of ways to do this. For starters, your smartphone may have a background remover built in! If it does, feel free to use that!

If not, there are two other great ways to go about this. The firsrt method we are going to try is the most direct method.

How to Create a Silhouette in Design Space

Here's how we do this in Design Space. Note that the more high contrast your image is (contrast between the person you want to make a Silhouette out of and the background is the more likely this will work!

1. Open Cricut Design Space

2. Click "New Project" (the plus sign)

3. Click "Upload"

4. Click "Upload Image"

5. Click "Browse"

6. Navigate to the image you want to use, select it and click "Open"

7. Choose "Moderately Complex" and click "continue"

8. The image will pop up but is likely zoomed in too much. If it is, zoom out clicking the magnifying glass with the negative symbol in it until you can see the whole image in your screen.

9. Now click on your background until it has all disappeared. Watch the background and subject closely as you do this, if a part of the person gets cut off, stop. If the part that gets cut off is way below the shoulders, don't worry about it and keep going. Continue removing the background until just the person/pet it left.

10. If part of the subject gets removed as you click on the background, click undo using the left arrow on the top right. Then click on "Advanced Options" on the left. Change the "Color Tolerance" to "8". Then try clicking on the background again. This will tell Design Space to only remove background areas that are closer to what you clicked. You can play with this number until you get to a setting that works and you can remove the rest of the background without cutting off part of the subject.

11. Once you have removed all the background that you can see, click "Continue"

12. It will look something like this. Don't worry! This is what you're looking for actually. Look at the photo on the left, doesn't it already look like a Silhouette? Take note of the specs around your subject where the background was, we are going to remove these. Click "Back" (Not cancel!)

13. Now click on the eraser and adjust the size using the slider so that your eraser (the circle) is a good size. Use this to erase those specs by clicking and dragging the circle over the specs. You want to get most of them but if you miss a few don't worry - they are likely so small that you will naturally miss them when you weed!

14. This step is optional but I really like the effect. Using the eraser again, "draw" a swish just under the neck (and all the space under that swish) to make the effect shown below. If you prefer a straight line, skp this step.

15. Click "Continue"

14. Select "Cut Image" and then "continue". Remember, a few extra specs is okay!

How to Create a Silhouette in Outside of Design Space

If the method above doesn't work,, try using an app on your phone or a website to remove the background. This could be faster, but I generally like to work in Design Space when I can! This is especially useful if your background has a lot of detail or there isnt' much contrast. I especially like using PicMonkey to remove backgrounds!

Step 3: Cut your image out on vinyl

1. You will now find yourself in the library. Click on the image you just made and click "Insert Image"

2. Your image will now open and likely be very big! Click the image and then change the size using the measurement fields at the top. Adjust it to the size you need it for your specific frame.

3. Click "Make It"

4. Click "Continue"

5. If needed, select your Cricut machine from the drop down box. Make sure your Cricut is on when you get to this step

6. You will now need to select your material type. If you have an Explore Air 2, turn your dial to customer. If you have a maker, you won't need to do anything special. Now select a vinyl option that most closely matches what you will be using. For the type of Vinyl I used, choose "Premium Vinyl-Textured Metallic".

7. Check that you have a Fine tip blade in the machine.

8. Cut a piece of vinyl that's big enough for the size you specified in design space and put it on your standard grip mat. If you are new to Vinyl, you will notice that the vinyl has a carrier layer and then the vinyl later. Put both parts on the mat with the carrier layer down and the pretty side of the vinyl facing up.

9. Feed your mat into the Cricut machine (Hold it up to the wheels and then press the double arrow button)

10. Click the flashing C to begin cutting.

11. When it's done cutting, press the doubel arrow again to unload the mat.

12. Remove the vinyl from the mat by flipping the mat over and peeling the mat back while holding the vinyl in place. This lessens how much the vinyl will curl.

Step 4: Weed Your Vinyl Silhouette

Normally in a vinyl project, weeding the vinyl is a really big part and can take some time. In this case, though, your image is just one piece! While you may have some small pieces because of the specs, this time, you don't need to worry about the small pieces! In fact, you DON'T want them! So, with your fingers, carefully remove the vinyl you don't want on the outside edges. You will likely be able to remove the whole thing in one pieces.

If you have some small internal pieces, likely caused by a hairstyle, you can use tweezers or a weeding tool to remove it. This is unlikely though.

When you're done with this step you will have JUST our vinyl silhouette on the carrier sheet.

Step 5: Apply your vinyl to paper and frame

1. Cut a piece of the water color paper so that it will fit in the frame.

2. At this point you should have just your vinyl silhouette on the backing. You could just pick up the silhouette and carefully place it on your paper.

3. If you need more insurance, place a piece of transfer tape over your silhouette image and press down. Then carefully fold back enough backing to expose about an inch of the sticky side of the silhouette.

4. Line up the silhouette on the page and then press down on the part of the silhouette that had the sticky end exposed.

5. Now carefully slide the rest of the backing off while pressing the silhouette into the paper to avoid bubbles.

6. Once the silhouette's backing is fully removed, scrape against the vinyl to ensure that all bubbles are gone.

7. Now carefully remove the transfer tape on top. If you do it too quickly, you may rip the paper.

8. Place your art inside the frame and close it! All done!