Time Consuming Tasks

I've been working on getting some of our childrens' photographs together to create a gallery on the hallway wall.  I have collected a stack together and am finding that I will have eight-by-tens of three of the children and not have something that will fit for the fourth one except for a wallet sized print.  I will have two five-by-seven individual shots of two of the children but nothing similar of the other two children.  Finally, I just started trying to put things together and ordered several enlargements to round things out.  The printing company told me that my chosen prints might turn out a little blurry if I enlarged it to an eight-by-ten or something like that.  Eventually, I decided to just take a risk on the enlargement because it cost me about $3.50.  I may have to go back to the drawing board but I have some prints on the way and can look for them to be delivered to my doorsteps within a week.  So, my advice to folks is to take LOTS more pictures than you ever think you will need.  You can never have too many!

I think my luck with photographs lately has just been jinxed. 
I had thought I would borrow an idea from a fellow blogger and create some silhouettes of the granddaughters to hang in the guest bathroom.  I'm wanting something personal for in there but I want to keep it pretty simple.  So, I thought silhouettes would be just the thing.

I did a little bit of research and found a great tutorial for making your own silhouettes.  There were tips and suggestions for making the photos which will be used for the pattern.  One of the suggestions was to try to get the child to turn his/her head just a bit to get the eyelashes of the eye on the far side from the camera.  One was to be sure that the child's chin is tilted up just a wee bit to elongate the neck.  One was to to be sure you get just a little of the shoulder.  At this point, I wonder just how many shots those folks took before they got their chosen pose?  I could have filled up the entire memory card of my camera before getting something that looked like their examples, I think!

So, when two of the granddaughters were here to spend the night on Friday night, I tried to get profile shots of them.  Little girls do not really pose cooperatively for profile shots I learned.

First Lillie didn't get the idea of me taking a photo of her in profile.  She wanted to look at me and smile.

Then, she didn't get the concept of just looking her naturally pleasant expression.  I think this was one of the times I was trying to get those lashes.

I wonder if that scowl would show if I tried to use this particular shot?

Maybe I'll be able to work with this one to get something...

I started off with this sweet profile which is amazingly not a blur from all the movement.

With a cute little smudgy face like that, why am I trying to get a profile?

Maybe that is where the smudginess came from.  What do you think?

Notice how the Hershey Kiss is in perfect profile!

Do we really need a bottom lip or could we just put a sign next to the silhouette which explains that she decided to bit on her bottom lip?

Wonder how this one got in there?

I think this explains it, huh?

I think I finally got something that I can work with to give this project a try.  Now, I've got to get profile shots of the other two granddaughters. 

I wonder if I already have something I could just enlarge?

Maybe I should just find something cute and have it printed in black and white or sepia tones for a simplistic look...