15 Minutes and $1 for a Painted Horse Gift

This is one of the easiest gifts I have ever made. Seriously! The hardest part? Figuring out who I was going to make the gift for. Depending on who it's for would determine what the picture would be and what the color scheme would be.
I decided this would be a gift for my niece that is completely in love with horses.

Supplies:
Picture frame
Fabric (or interesting thick scrapbook paper)
Pencil
Picture in silhouette
Acrylic paint
Super fine paint brush for details
A surface you don't mind getting paint on (wax paper, scrap cardboard, etc.)


For this picture I used a super duper cheap picture from the everything's a $1 dollar store and a scrap of fabric cut to the same size as the paper insert that came in the frame.

I then used my Silhouette SD machine to cut out the shape of a horse. You don't have to have one of these machines though! You could just as easily use clip art or an image you find on the internet. You could also use a picture you've taken, or if you're good at drawing, you could draw something yourself!

Once the shape you choose is cut out place it on your fabric and see what you think of how it really looks. Depending on what pattern is on your fabric you might have to go with a picture that's chunkier, or more stream lined, or just a little different. This wasn't the first horse I had chosen to use, but it is the one that I thought looked the best.
After you decide this is the right picture to use trace around it with a pencil. If you are using dark fabric and you are going to use light colored paint then use a light colored pencil. If you're using dark paint then it doesn't matter what color pencil you use.

Once the entire picture is traced around remove the picture and make sure you can see the outline well enough. if there are places that need to be touched up now is the time to do it. You don't want to have to wing it while you're using paint. Unless you're good at winging it!
Next use your super skinny paint brush to paint the pencil line.

In the above picture I could have left it as-is. I thought it was pretty cute as an outline and just the hooves filled in. But I decided to continue filling in the rest of the horse with paint instead of leaving it as an outline. It is up to you, and how you think it would look best, as to whether or not you decide to fill in your picture.
If you decide to fill in the picture, then use whatever size paint brush will get the job done fairly easily without taking a long time. I definitely prefer quick and easy over long and tedious so I filled in the rest of my picture with a small-medium sized paint brush.

Now let it dry. It will take a whopping 5 or so minutes until it's completely dry because it's acrylic paint! Once it's dry put it in the frame, and then wrap it up! Total cost: $1 because I used paint I already had and a scrap of fabric. Total time: 15 minutes, max.