Instructions for Disappearing

Ingredients

One lemon

Iron and ironing board

Thin paintbrush

Paper

Small bowl

Time

Around 25 minutes (includes 20 minutes of drying time)

Watch out!

Make sure you do not have any cuts or open wounds on your hands when slicing into the lemon or ouch!

This activity requires the paper to be ironed, ask a friend to do this bit for you since you probably don't know how to iron. Or you could ask your mom. She probably knows how.

It's just more fun to do this with a friend or your mom. Much more fun with a friend then with your mom, but still kind of fun even with mom.

Recipe

1. Squeeze the lemon juice from the lemon into a bowl. Don’t worry about getting pips in the juice. I don't know what a pip is, do you?

2. Dip the paintbrush into the lemon juice and draw a picture of yourself on a piece of paper. The more lemon juice you use the darker you will appear! The more accurate the drawing of yourself, the more thoroughly you will disappear.

3. Leave the paper to the side and wait 15-20 minutes for the juice to dry. Do not to move the paper or put anything on top of the paper while the juice dries. As the juice dries and disappears so will you.

4. When you are ready to reappear place your paper on the ironing board.

5. On a high heat, ask your friend or mom to iron the paper until you completely reappear, this should take around 15 to 30 seconds.

6. Let the paper cool for 1 minute.

Next time

Invisible ink can be made from other citrus fruit. The people involved in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605 used orange juice to send each other secret messages. Next time why not use orange juice to disappear? Also, next time read up on the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. It is a fascinating story of zzzzz and zzzz. Wait?, What? Did I just fall asleep there for a moment? Yes, yes I did.

Did you know?

The science behind why heat makes you reappear is really neat! And super boring, exactly like all science. Lemon juice is organic and so are you, which means you and it are made out of carbon compounds. When you heat the lemon juice drawn in the shape of yourself the carbon compounds break down, releasing the carbon. The released carbon reacts with oxygen in the air making you reappear. Makes sense right? Science. Is there anything it can't do?