Silhouette Portrait Project

I have been reorganizing and re-situating things lately. When we moved in 2 Octobers ago, I put things up fairly quickly. Mainly because I wanted it to feel like home, but also, having things sit around in boxes drives me nuts. I found a decent spot, and hung it up. It's been fine, but lately I have been wanting to really design areas I just passed over before. With this comes brainstorming and budgeting.

I have an idea for a wall collection (you will have to wait on that one), but with this idea comes a project...a project I started with because it would be free, but now, I am really excited about it.

Silhouette portraits of my kids.

I had a collection of 3 mirrors I got awhile ago and was never too thrilled about where I had them. Mirrors are tricky. I like the concept of bouncing off light and making a space feel bigger, but placed too low and I catch my face. It's not a terrible face, but I don't care to see myself two dozen times a day as I walk down the hall.

I would pop out the mirrors and use the frames. The frame shape is the best part. (Saving the mirrors in case a project pops up later where I can use them.)

Then I painted it with my favorite paint to help the frames blend in to my other wall decor. (Distressed them later to make them look more antique.)

Then the insert, the actual silhouette portrait. For that, I used my kids and both our patience. All you need is a profile picture. Lorelai handled this fine...not to happy, but I got my shot.

Addy was a little trickier, she kept wanting to talk to me, and not look in front of her...but again, I got what I needed after a couple of tries.

Last, Finn...obviously there is no explaining to a 4 month old that he needed to look a certain direction and stay still for a couple seconds...so that took longer to capture. After about 10 minutes, I got one I could work with,

Next, you print out the pictures. You then do something sort of strange and trace their profile with a pen/marker, color their cute little faces black with a thick marker, and then cut out. Now, if you notice, I took some creative liberties on filling in certain features that didn't make it into frame, but their noses, lips, foreheads, eyelashes...all the stuff that makes up their perfect portrait, that's all original. ;-)

I know they will grow, and their faces will change, but I like the idea of leaving these as their ages now. I look forward to hanging these up soon. ♥

M.LEWIS