4/15/15

Fun with Sun Prints

One of Trevor's Cub Scout electives this year was to make nature-inspired sun prints. Fun! We took the supplies into the backyard and started selecting promising leaves, flowers, and other elements for the prints. I showed Trevor how to do his composition in the shade and then move it to the sun for exposure. For his first design, he used two leaves and a flower.


Trevor made a few more nature-inspired prints, then he headed indoors to look for other interesting things to try. Here is a Lego spike strip and two Minecraft characters.


Here are three of his favorite minifigs, separated into all their parts. These dimensional items added interesting shadows to the sun prints that the flattened leaves and flowers did not.


Of course, it is impossible for me to be around any type of crafting without joining in, so I made a few prints of my own. My favorite was a grouping of seven small flowers. When the print was dry, I added a rub-on, drew stems with a white pen, and attached it to a card base.


To make your own sun prints, you need a special paper (cyanotype). It's easy to find in craft stores or science museum gift shops packaged as a sunprint kit. It's around $10 for 15-20 papers. Here's an affiliate link to one (of many) brands sold through Amazon: Super Sunprint Kit.

9 comments:

  1. Ohhhhhh I love love love them all!!! your card turned out FABULOUS!!!!!!!!!

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  2. Awesome! I love it!! Too funny that we were doing similar crafts around the same time ;) LOL

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  3. Love this! Can you direct me to where I can find instructions? Maybe I missed it on your blog? Thanks!!!

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    1. Sorry about that! I'll update the blog with the information. :)

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    2. Thank you!! BTW, LOVE your blog!!

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  4. I have never heard of this. How does it work? Do you lay items on the special paper then put them in the sun for a certain number of hours? In the beginning, was the paper blue or white? Is it stable afterwards? Can you frame these creations or use them as cards? You got such a cool result. Love it. Wish I knew more. You always have such interesting ideas. I learn a lot from your blog!

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    1. The paper starts out medium blue and is in a light-proof envelope within its package. You remove a piece of the paper from its special envelope and then layer a piece of cardboard, the paper, and your items while standing out of direct sunlight. You move it to direct sunlight. Within 1 minute, the paper turns from blue to white. When the paper is white, you move the whole set-up to the shade without disturbing the objects, then remove them and dunk the paper in water. After swishing for about 1 minute, the white paper returns to medium blue, but the object silhouettes stay white. As the paper dries (20-30 min), it turns to the dark blue you see above. Once they are dry, they can be exposed to light without concerns about messing up the prints. You can frame them or use them as cards, bookmarks, etc.

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