You might remember making these homemade projects as a child, especially if you were a girl or boy scout. With just a little added creativity like framing, these natural creations can make great homemade gifts. Sun prints are those blue and white prints made from placing objects like flowers or leaves on a piece of photo-sensitive paper, laying it out in the sun for a few minutes, rinsing the paper off, and voila, you have some naturally created and inspired art that that kids and adults could make. I have seen these used as framed art pieces.
What you need:
- A sunprint paper kit. Sunprints.org has these.
- Objects to place on the paper. Commonly use objects are flowers, leaves, dandelion seeds. Buy a large sheet and do silhouettes of yourself or your kids. You can also get creative and crumple up the paper to get a neat effect. Sunprints.org has a lot of cool ideas to check out.
- A container of water to rinse the paper off.
The process:
- Arrange your objects on the paper
- Lay the paper out in the sun for a few minutes. It will take longer in indirect light, or under an overcast sky. The paper will fade to white when done.
- Place the paper in the water for a few minutes, until the color completely reverses.
- Let dry and you have your homemade gift!
Here is a site that has a cool idea on how to turn these creations into calendars.