sun prints.

A few times a year we make sun prints. It is interesting to see how slowly/quickly the sensitive paper develops the image based on the amount of sunlight and time of year. For the winter solstice, our sun prints which used what light came in through our windows took many minutes to develop. For the summer solstice last week, it was VERY fast. One of the challenges with making sun prints "fun" for the boys is finding something to DO with the prints after. They LOVE making them, but the actual process takes only minutes. This time around we made them into artwork...both interesting and creative!



First the boys picked their items and placed them on the paper (they chose flowers, herbs, and leaves). We went into the sun, and the boys held the tray still as it exposed fully in the sunshine.


When done, we rinsed them in cool water for a few minutes and then let them dry. They like watching it go from a positive to a negative image.


We end up with these cool bold blue sun prints. The boys wanted to 'do' something with them, so they glued them onto card stock and embellished them with different botanical paper shapes that they picked out.


They then punched the ends with a big puncher and strung them together ~ but they would also make great cards or look nice in a frame.

Fun!