Children's Silhouette

This past summer I took a trip to Monticello with my husband and sister and her husband.  While the tour of Thomas Jefferson's home was outstanding, one of the things that caught my eye were the silhouettes hanging on the wall.  They really looked charming and made me wish that I had made silhouttes of my children when they were younger.  My oldest son is 25 and my youngest is 15, so any kind of silhouette now just would not have the same impact for me.  I really liked the way they captured the youth of a child.  So, much to my dismay, I went home and that was pretty much the end of that.  That was until, while I was cleaning out some closets I found not one but BOTH of my sons had silhouettes made of them in their younger days.  I simply had no recall of these art projects but apparently at the time I had the good sense to save them.  The great thing about these silhouettes is that they are both around the same age.  I could not believe my good fortune, more like a blessing from God crossing over the years.  I was completely thrilled.  The only problem was that each silhouette was about 16x11 and I wanted a much smaller picture.  To make things even better I had found two old picture frames that would look absolutely wonderful.  So I came up with an idea that worked perfect.
First, I took a picture of both the silhouettes and then I down loaded them into my computer and adjusted them the size that I wanted.

These are the two original size silhouttes and the two reduced size.  Also pictured are the two frames I used to mount them.

After cutting out the silhouette I reversed it and traced it onto some black paper.

Then I carefully cut it out.

I printed their name on some white stock paper and glued the silhouette in place.

I had my son spray paint the border black for me.  Mostly because my hands look so old when I take pictures of them.

Then I traced around the border and cut.

Here are the finished silhouttes

Here they are hanging on the wall.  What a great project and I feel so blessed to have been able to step back into time and accomplish this.  Now I will have these silhouettes of my younger children forever.  Also, the cost of this project? 0.00

Everything was recycled.  I hope you enjoyed this project and if your children are still young go have their silhouette's made, you won't regret it!