Recycling kids' art

I don't know how it is at your house, but recently our preschooler has been prolific at producing artwork.  Coloring pages, watercolor paintings, miscellaneous "sculptures"--you name it, he's been hard at work making multiple copies.

One way I try to display some art without keeping all of it is by framing a few pieces and hanging them in his room.  For a few months I've had some of his colorings there (see his room tour here).  But then I had an idea to try to incorporate some of his more "abstract" work (I mean the kind with squiggles or paint everywhere!) by framing it with a silhouette of sorts.  I decided to use a Doctor Who theme since he's a big fan of the show.  Here's how you can make your own silhouette art:

Supplies you will need: a few kids' paintings to serve as the background, some construction paper or cardstock, scissors, and images of what you'd like to silhouette.

I just found a couple pictures online of a Dalek and the TARDIS, then blew them up in Microsoft Word and printed them out in grayscale since all I really needed was the silhouette.  Feel free to use whatever your child likes: animals, a silhouette of their profile, trucks and cars, shapes, numbers and letters, etc.

Once you have printed out the image you want to use, carefully cut around the edges and center it on the colored paper.

Trace around the image, then cut it out of the middle of the construction paper.  This is probably the most time-consuming stage since you want to be really neat with your cuts.

When you're finished cutting out the image, tape your kids' artwork to the back of the paper, then mount the art inside your picture frame.  Here is the completed Dalek silhouette.

And here is the finished TARDIS silhouette.

I hung an inexpensive KVART sconce from IKEA above the frames to light them from above.

The final product: