Solar Print Craft

The prints you will make from this solar print craft are fun to make and pretty enough to hang in your living room! All it takes is a quick trip to a craft store
for the special paper and some pretty flowers or leaves.

©2007 Publications International, Inc. With the sun's help you'll make some amazing pictures.

Solar prints are a special kind of photography that use sunlight to create images on paper. The pictures you will make will be an outline of the items you choose, so pick leaves and flowers with interesting shapes.

The flowers and leaves will block the sunlight, so the paper under them will be white while the exposed paper will be a pretty dark purple.

What You'll Need:

• Light-sensitive paper (also called sun-printing paper)
• Leaves
• Flowers
• Ferns
• Water
• Dishpan or square cake pans
• Clothespins or newspaper

Step 1: After choosing the leaves and flowers, fill the dishpan with water and set it aside. Arrange your leaves and flowers on the light-sensitive paper in an interesting design.

Step 2: Take the paper outside on a sunny day (with the leaves and flowers on it), and expose it to bright sunlight. It should take about five minutes.

©2007 Publications International, Inc. Let the sunshine work its magic.

Step 3: Remove the flowers and leaves, and put the paper in the dishpan of water for another 5 minutes. The water "fixes" the prints.

Step 4: Once the prints are done, you can hang them to dry on a clothesline using clothespins or lay them on newspaper, face up.

All sorts of possibilities exist with this solar print craft. Challenge your friends and family to be visually creative!

Continue to the next page to find out more about our positive and negative cutout craft and see both sides of the picture.

For more fun craft ideas, try:

• Paper Art Designs
• Paper Crafts
• Kids' Crafts