I love your first idea and it reminds me of a class I took in the 70s called "Reverse Quilting". This is where you cut out the image from black fabric (leaving a 1/4" for turning under) then you put the fabric of your choice behind it. We hand stitched our blacks but today machine stitching is great. However, having said all this, I have to say that I really love the black silhouettes. They are just so sharp and perfect. If you do FMQ, you could do their names in the quilting just to show off. Love your ideas.