Learning how to make sun prints is one of the most rewarding and simple craft activities you can do with children of all ages, using just sunlight, special light-sensitive fabric, and objects from around your home or garden.
Yesterday we opened up a new bag of sunprint fabric (affiliate) that I’ve been saving for just the right time, and I can attest that this project is easy, rewarding, and toddler-approved.
What are Sun Prints?
Sunprints are technically cyanotypes, a type of photograph made without a camera. The sunprint fabric is light-sensitive and produces a negative image when exposed to sunlight or very intense artificial light. es a negative image when exposed to sunlight or very intense artificial light. This simple science-meets-art activity creates beautiful blue prints that preserve the silhouettes of objects placed on the special paper.
Benefits of This Activity
On the creativity side of things, this activity presents good opportunities to explore nature, experiment with composition, and discuss the process of developing photographs (a far-off concept for today’s digitally saturated world).
And now that we’ve entered the highly addictive land-of-sunprints, I can see all kinds of potential for printing small toys, fridge letter magnets, stickers, flowers, and other little knick-knacks.
Step 1: Collect interesting objects from nature.
We collected ours on a walk the other day, and I’m proud to report that my 2-year-old can recognize a maple leaf! She trumps her urban mama in her nature knowledge every time. You can also use flowers, feathers, small toys, or anything with an interesting shape.
Step 2: Gather Your Supplies.
You’ll need sun print fabric or paper, interesting objects to create silhouettes, a flat surface for arranging your design, and access to sunlight.
Step 3: Open Pack of Sun Print Fabric
Be sure to keep all unused pieces in the dark package. Exposure to light makes them useless later on.
Step 4: Place objects on the fabric and set it out in bright sun for about 15 minutes
Follow the specific timing instructions on your package.
This is an excellent way to reinforce the value of patience with children!
Step 5: Rinse in cool water…
…and voila! Your sun print is ready. Just wait for it to dry and then use it like you’d use any piece of fabric.
Creative Ways to Use Your Sun Prints
Some ideas: stitch your sun prints onto a bag, t-shirt, or quilt. My daughter decided to attach hers to a small bag – perfect for collecting more treasures on our next nature walk!
This one really made my jaw drop. It came out so clear and defined! Can’t wait to see what it turns into.
The clarity of the image is what makes this so appealing. We’ll keep you posted…
we’re gonna try tomorrow. will michael’s have sunprinting fabric?
cool! i’d love hear how it goes. i’d give michael’s a call, and if they don’t have it a good bet would be an art supply store. generally, the sunprint paper is easier to come by than the fabric. if you decide to wait a couple days, our discount school supply order arrived in about 2 days since it was shipped from california.
no go on michaels… i’m going to order!
bummer, but good to know!
[…] Make Leaf Sun Prints as a way to preserve leaf shapes on fabric. […]
Will sun prints work with artificial light, such as grow lamps or daylight bulbs?
no idot
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