Nancy Drew 2011 Halloween Party Planning #3

Nancy Drew Halloween Party -
Window Silhouette

Part of any great Halloween celebration is setting the scene! One neat way to do so, is to create a window silhouette. Choose a window that has a great focal point to your house and the party. A front window that isn't obstructed from view from the street is ideal too, so everyone walking and driving by can see how spiffy you are ;) Ha!

Materials:

Silhouette Image
Black Poster Board
Tape
Scissors
Pencil
Tissue Paper

Instructions:

The first thing to do is figure out your design for the window and print it out to use as a guide. I printed mine out, divided it into 4 parts for the 4 areas of my window.

I then taped up my 4 pieces of black poster board into the window so I could use the above silhouette image as a guide while I drew the outline onto the poster board in pencil.


Here's an example of my design--I had to erase several times until I got it right--my first stab at it had Nancy's head being about 3 times as big and the proportion was totally off--so keep proportion in mind when doing this! If you happen to have a projector--projecting the silhouette onto a wall where you've taped your paper is much easier and goes quicker. What I did was old school since I don't have a handy projector.

Once you have the desired look, cut out the pieces--I set them down on the tile to get a visual before taping in the window.

Begin taping your silhouette into the window--I try not to use too much tape and tape in areas where it won't show too much like on the backs of strips that are going across the panes, etc. I decided that my silhouette needed to be on stairs so I added stairs to the window.

I also added the ghost to the right--that side was rather bare and since we're going to be in a "haunted" house next weekend for the party, it seemed to fit well. Kind of spooky too.

My husband rocks! I was going to back the silhouette with yellow tissue which I like to use with silhouettes and then have it inside the flashlight part with the outline of the edges of the beam in black, but he thought if I used blue tissue it would look better. I decided to try and it and I think it worked great! Nancy's supposed to be in a hidden passageway so it makes it have a darker and spookier effect and then sets off the yellow tissue for the flashlight beam really nicely. It kind of has an almost blue-grey look in person.

The key is to layer the tissue and not overlap too much as overlapping shows up darker. Piecing with tissue can be time consuming but it's worth it.

If you want to make a silhouette that you can use again and again without too much wear, you can make it out of felt. I have a red felt banner with black felt silhouette and in a window it glows nicely. If you used yellow or white and then a black silhouette on it, it will look great too and keep nicely.

Jenn:)