Cyanotype

While most of our flowers are at the end of their blooms for the season, there are still plenty of interesting things around our yard.  Leaves with delicate, lacy outlines in the garden, ethereal feathers over by the bird feeder and all kinds of leaves -- well, everywhere.  So I decided to take Maddie on a hunt around the yard and we collected all kinds of things.

After that we grabbed this book:

It's actually a book/kit called The Sunlight Print Kit and it comes with 12 sheets of treated paper, a nice book which we will be studying in school (homeschool) and a plastic cover and box for making the prints.  This is really a lot of fun and can be educational too.

Basically you take a treated sheet of paper -- which is photo sensitive like film -- and place things on top of it.  You want to do this inside away from direct sunlight.  Then cover it with clear plastic or glass (to hold the items in place) and take it out into the sunshine.  It only takes a minute or two.  Come back inside, remove the items and rinse the paper in a shallow tub or pan filled with plain water and a couple drops of lemon juice.  It's really like magic!

You can also make cyanotype prints on fabric.   The most excellent book -- Complete Craft: Making Beautiful Projects at Home by Katherine Sorrell -- has a nice chapter on cyanotype and it's different applications.  Her feather floor cube is printed on silk and is just gorgeous!

Comments

[Tracey]

Oh I love it, that is a really fun craft. I did a card once with all the keys on my keychain, I just took them all off and arranged them all over the paper.

[Christie]

That is too cool!

[jessie]

This is very cool. My daughter has a school project that can have anything to do with trees. She already has a leaf collection she made over the summer but this looks like more fun. Thanks.