Cyanotype & Tote Bag Kit: Print with Sunlight

Two kits in one box, meant to be used on the same bag: a solar printing kit
that turns sunlight into deep blue prints, and a tote painting kit with a
100% cotton bag, fabric paints, transfer paper and a fixer. One afternoon,
and the result is a bag nobody else owns.

Sun printing is a photographic process without a camera. Lay leaves, lace or
a cut-paper stencil onto the coated fabric, leave it in direct sun for about
twenty minutes, then rinse it under the tap. Whatever blocked the light stays
white. Everything else turns deep Prussian blue.

What you print with is where it gets interesting. Ferns and grasses give
clean silhouettes. Things that only half block the light: lace, a doily,
crumpled cling film, a glass tumbler come out as soft gradients instead of
outlines. Cut a stencil and you can print words, a name, a date. Lift a leaf
a few millimetres off the fabric and its edges blur. And it doesn't have to
stay blue: soak the finished print in strong black tea and the whole thing
shifts to violet-brown.

Then paint into it. The white shapes the sun left behind are your outlines. Fill them, edge them, or add something the sun could never make. Two techniques layered on one bag is the entire reason this combo exists, and it's not a thing you can buy already made.

Practical bits: it needs real sunlight, so plan an afternoon rather than an evening. Wash the finished bag cold, on its own, with a mild detergent and no bleach.