Silhouettes for the Folks

When we moved into our new home 2 summers ago, I was faced with the reality that I had left behind a huge custom closet we had built into our old home. And now I had 2 teeny closets in which to squeeze all of my and my husband’s clothes. Our glorious walk-in had been complete with drawers and cubbies, so we didn’t own any dressers or armoires. My parents came to our rescue. They gave us their very first bedroom set that they used when they began their life together. It was a little worse for wear, but I was grateful to have a spot to store my socks and unmentionables.

Imagine my surprise when, in removing the drawers to do a once-over cleaning, I found some old tattered pages beneath the drawer liner.

The sheets were large, about 18×24 and they were yellowed with age and the glue had long since lost its “stick” so the carefully trimmed, silhouetted heads that were once adhered to them were loose. My mom had kept these life-size profile silhouettes for 20 years! There was one for each of my 3 siblings and me. You could pick us out easily.

Anyway, I stored the papers and created the above piece for mom & dad this past christmas. I photographed each silhouette, cleaned them up in photoshop, favoring a crisp white background over the yellowed paper one. I sized them way down and framed them all together in one, 5-holed mat/frame using the extra space to list our names.