Sun Printing Results from Yesterday

Just a quick post to share the results of some of my sun-printing experiments yesterday. It was a perfect day weather-wise, sunny and breezy rather than windy. Apart from a specific piece that I wanted to make for my April Calendar Girl postcard, I just wanted to try out my new plastic lace tablecloths.


I have been trying to find some of these for ages but haven't had any luck until we dropped into Spotlight last weekend while we were in Perth. I always think of old ladies and fussy houses or old fashioned but practical country hotels when I think of this plastic stuff (with apologies to anyone who actually uses this stuff for its intended purpose) but it works an absolute dream for sun-printing and is much quicker than arranging individual objects on the fabric.


I used a variety of fabric dyes (the ready mixed sort) and some Tsukineko All Purpose Ink and a variety of new and recycled fabrics. Very happy with the results.

I also tried plastic shelf lace that I had bought in the craft shop in town here and that worked fantastic too.
As usual I forgot to use gloves so I have rather hideous looking hands and nails again...

One of the mopping-up cloths that turned out rather nice!

Mixed Media Monday - Words

This week's theme at Mixed Media Monday is "words". I included some words on this journal page I finished tonight for Vicci's square shaped book that I am working on as part of a round robin, so I am using this page as my entry for this theme.

The page is fabric (a recycled man's shirt) that I have sun-printed using champagne caps (or whatever it is that you call those little metal caps on top of champagne corks) and pink and orange glass paints. I have stamped in hot pink Fabrico ink using a flourish stamp and the end of a small cardboard roll. I've stitched a small piece of silk fusion fabric beneath the image which has been printed on an inkjet fabric sheet. To make the page more dimensional I have added fusible wadding underneath. And the beaded ribbon is much prettier than it looks in this scan.

A fun page to make!! I really do LOVE hot pink and orange together - I wonder what that says about me??!!

My Experiments...

So here are my experiments with sun printing. Please allow for the fact that I decided to do this on the spur of the moment yesterday so did minimal preparation! Given all of this I am very happy with the results - I can see that I will be doing this a lot more now that I can see how easy it is!!

The brighter coloured piece was made using a very wet piece of fabric (from a recycled shirt - polyester cotton) and Glass Paint (thickened transparent paint by Pebeo Vitrea 160) and the metal tops off champagne corks (can't imagine how I came by them...). I think this is my favourite because it is brighter. The fabric is a bit stiffer as a result of using Glass Paints (I don't paint glass so why do I have so many colours of glass paint???) but in some ways that makes the cloth all the more manageable for the sort of stuff I do (not wearables or washables!!).

The blue/green piece was Dyna Flow paints and plastic foam shapes on a new piece of very wet but unwashed fabric, presumably a polyester/cotton mix - the sun print is very white under the shapes as a result of their flat surface which virtually adhered to the wet fabric).

The other piece is on the same sort of fabric and is also coloured with Dyna Flow in pink and purple (not so diluted where I added squirts and freehand doodles straight from the bottle) and chipboard shapes create the sun prints.

All very interesting and the three pieces only took about 30 minutes from start to finish except for the drying which probably took a whole extra 10 minutes because it was so hot. I also did the whole exercise outside in the sun which forced me to work very fast. I'll be taking this experimentation further now that I can see how easy it is! All of the pieces will be used for small projects - maybe a notebook cover and postcards and ATCs.

The last two pictures are of my rubbing boards that I am making from leftover dimensional paint and cardboard. They are actually made with very bright shiny paint but the scanning has completely taken out the orange colour and some of the green! I picked paint colours that I figured I wouldn't ever use now that I am not doing little kid's clothes. I am going to use the boards with shiva sticks and fabric to create patterns and texture. The idea comes from a great new Zine "Fibre & Stitch" and has great appeal to me as I have lots of half used dimensional paint! Up until now I have been using it up on backgrounds etc but I also noticed recently that a sort of revival is happening with dimensional paint embellishment of scrapbook pages etc.

Talking of texture boards - I still use the board I made in 2000 from hot glue and cardboard for Julie van Oosten's rust technique. Does anyone else remember this wonderful technique - it is a great way of colouring and texturizing cardstock with Denim and Butterscotch Adirondack Dye Inks???