Edgar Allan Poe October: Halloween Plate Silhouettes

"Dark draperies hung upon the walls. 

The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered. 

Many books and musical instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to the scene. 

I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow."

~Edgar Allan Poe, "The Fall of the House of Usher"

There is a strange phenomenon that occurs at our house somewhere near the middle of October.  I like to call it "poverty."  Maybe it is because I've been zealously trying to get my Christmas shopping done by Halloween.  Maybe it is because we are still recovering from summer vacation.  Or maybe it is because my grocery store had a sale on canned pumpkin and I panicked and bought two cases of the stuff.  

Seriously.

So, for whatever the reason, we're cinching our belts around here.

This means that when my heart saw these plate collections, I knew I couldn't go on a mad shopping spree to find a bunch just like them.  (And heaven knows we love silhouettes around here, like these and these and these.)

{via Tatertots and Jello}

{via Country Living}

So I did the next best thing.

I forayed into my creepy basement and found some scrap pieces of black felt and a stack of thrift store white plates that had yet to see the light of day.

Now here is the tricky part.  Pay close attention now because the intricacy of what is about to follow is mind-bending:

I cut some simple shapes and letters out of the felt and then used a washable glue stick to adhere them to the plate. 

And yes, I said "glue stick."

Minutes later I have my own collection of Halloween silhouette plates (that will easily convert back into plain white plates with just a little water).  

And not a cent spent.

That's what I call a scary-good deal.

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Savvy Southern Style
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StoneGable  
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Fall Poetry: Silhouette Portrait Wall

I had a little nut-tree, 

Nothing would it bear. 

I searched in all its branches, 

But not a nut was there. 

'Oh, little tree,' I begged, 

'Give me just a few.' 

The little tree looked down at me 

And whispered, 'Nuts to you.' 

~ Roald Dahl

I have noticed a strange phenomenon in my children.  As soon as they enter third grade, they are completely incapable of taking a natural-looking school picture.  

In their second grade portraits they grin like the little gappy-toothed angels that I know and love.  But then something horrible happens over summer break.  It is almost as if some sort of latent squirrel DNA manifests itself in their bloodstream as soon as they sit down for that 3rd grade photo, because all of a sudden they feel the need to pull their lips back across their teeth so tightly that their cheeks puddle into poochy mounds as if they are hording nuts for the winter.  

30 dollars later, I have a permanent record of what my children might have looked like had they been sired by Chip or Dale.

So I'm skipping the photo order this week.

Instead, I decided to capture my children as they truly are with no expectation of natural smiles or combed hair or matching clothes.  And I have to say, it was the best photo session we've ever had.  I channeled my inner Jane Austen (not hard to do) and turned all of their photos into silhouettes.

Here's what I did.

I started by taking pictures of my children's profiles.  When I uploaded the photos to my computer, I changed the photos to black and white for better contrast.  I then sized the photos for my picture frames and printed them off on plain-old white printer paper and cut out the profiles with scissors.

Then I flipped the cutouts over and coated them with some black acrylic paint.

When the black paint was dry, I mounted the silhouettes with a glue stick to some 5x7 sheets of white paper and popped them in the frames.

I decided to hang my children's portraits vertically to pack a visual punch.

It has been delightful to see the kids analyze their features and determine who looks like who.   And the best part---not one squirrel-ish similarity in the bunch.

I'd easily trade thirty minutes of work for lovely keepsakes of my children rather than hand over hundreds of dollars to the school photographer and his rubber chicken.

Besides, that school photographer seems to do better with animals anyway.  

Especially the nut-loving variety.

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Savvy Southern StyleStoneGable  
From My Front Porch to Yours
Common Ground
French Country Cottage
Stuff and Nonsense
At the Picket Fence