How to Make a Fall Leaf Sun Print

Sun prints make lovely greeting cards or pictures for your refrigerator or wall.

Sun prints are a great way to discuss some of the scientific properties of light while creating interesting and beautiful designs on colored paper. You can make these sun prints with your children at any time of year, but fall is particularly fun because there are many interesting leaves laying around on the ground. These sun prints are incredibly simple to make, and children as young as 3 or 4 can make them, but you will need a little patience in order to get the full results.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Flat fall leaves
• Colored construction paper
• Clear tape

1. Collect 10 or 20 leaves with interesting shapes. The colors are not particularly important, but fall is a great time to enjoy the outdoors together so you might want to focus on beautiful colors and sights of fall. You can collect your leaves while hiking or even raking the yard.

2. This project will not work on a windy day.

   Lay your colored construction paper outside on the flat surface. If you are concerned that it might get moved or knocked over, use small pieces of tape to secure it. It is very important for the construction paper not to move.

3. Arrange the leaves on the paper in a pretty pattern. If you are making stationary, you may want to leave an open space in the middle of the paper, whereas if you are just making a sun print, you can arrange them all over the paper if you wish.

4. Leave the leaves on top of the paper in the sun for at least 6 hours. If the days are still long enough, then let them sit out longer. The longer that you leave them in the sun, the clearer your sun print will become.

5. Remove the tape and the leaves from the paper. You will see that the color of the construction paper has faded where the leaves covered it, leaving sharp outlines of the leaves on the paper. Now you are ready to hang your sun print.

Tips & Warnings

• Talk to your child about how sunlight can fade colors. This is a good opportunity to talk about the importance of protecting your skin from the sun and also to discuss how bright lights can actually change the things they shine on over time.