tutorial tuesday: invisible ink letters

Hooray for Tutorial Tuesday! Still January = still posting tutorials about letter writing.

When I was in elementary school, I did some kind of summer class at the library and that is where I learned how to write with invisible ink. Thankfully, I tested out my memory of how to do this and it worked. So I can pass it on to you.

I did this with my almost-four-year-old yesterday afternoon and it was right up his alley. He drew monsters for a few his friends. I’m thinking all of my valentines will have invisible messages this year. Think of it: a hidden love letter!!

SUPPLIES:

+ paper (the lighter colored, the better. The red construction paper pictured here didn’t work as well as the light yellow. Test your paper before doing your whole project)
+ lemon juice
+ q-tips
+ something hot (candle, match, 150-watt lightbulb, iron)

1. Write your message. Dip the q-tip in the lemon juice and draw on the paper. You can draw or write a message or both.

2. Let it dry completely. The message will totally disappear. Cool, right?!

3. Heat it up. Using your hot source (I used a candle) heat the paper and the message will slowly start to appear.

So if you are using this to send to someone, stop after step #2 and mail it with directions for the recipient to heat it up. A cute little valentines idea would be to send it with some yummy smelling candle as the gift. I’m thinking I will make a bunch of magic hearts with messages on it and package it up with candles to send out.

How will you use your invisible ink?