How to Do Easy Sun Printing on Fabric With Acrylic Paint & Water

If you're lazy and you love Mother Earth you might love today's episode about sun printing on fabric. I want to adopt more green practices in my life, including using cloth napkins. So, in the spirit of environmentalism, I have decided to show you how to sun print on fabric.

I also wanted to do a craft involving nature where Mother Nature could do the craft with us/for us! The sun is going to do most of the work. DIY sun printing on fabric is a very cool craft to try on things you have around the house.

Normally you would probably be working with a white napkin. I am not because these are what I have but we are going to dye them using simple acrylic paint and water.

Basically, the key to this craft is to keep everything as wet as possible because you don't want it to dry without the sun's kiss. The sun's brightness is going to make the print of the florals and plants.

So, for that reason, I'm going to paint these napkins one at a time, one color at a time. I've just mixed up a loose watery mixture of acrylic paint. I'm going to dampen the napkin first, then paint it really quickly. The darker the paint, the more contrast we’ll get in the sun printing.

6. Take the napkins outside to dry in the sun

Or, do the whole craft outside! I realized this after the first one, as all the things moved once I took the napkin out.

If you didn't know, this is called, I believe, cyanotype printing, which is when you do printing through UV light aka the sun. If you're smarter than me, comment below and tell me what you know about it.

You can actually buy special solar print dye, which is cool of course, but if you just need to work with what you have on hand, acrylic works too.

Sun printing on fabric

Well, I don't know about you but I am very inspired by Mother Nature's ability to create something beautiful with practically no effort. I think it would be so cool to do this on t-shirts, paper, throw pillows, or upholstery. Sun printing on fabric is such a fun, cool, creative, and different thing to do.

My biggest pro tips for sun printing would be to use more paint than water, get leaves or flowers that are flat and have very clear designs on the edges, and do the sun printing somewhere where there's no wind.

I'm very excited to have my first beautiful set of sun-printed cloth napkins. I hope that you will be inspired to try something similar. Also, if you're interested in more eco-friendly crafts, check out my previous project where I dyed a pillowcase using all-natural dyes.

Shout out to Mother Earth because she is the most beautiful DIY-er of all!