Blue Print Paper

Autopause

OFF

Materials

1 Black Bag of Blue Paper

1 Bag of Dried Leaves

1 Ultraviolet Flashlight

1 Double A Battery

1 Paper Towel

Instructions

STEP 1

0:00

Reach into your kit & pull out the bag with the flashlight in it. Place everything around the white mat, and put the bag back in your box.

STEP 2

0:18

Take out one of the sheets from the black bag and place it on your mat with the blue side facing up, towards you.

STEP 3

0:31

Open the bag of dried leaves. Grab and tear along the tab to open the package.

STEP 4

0:49

Take the leaves out and place them on top of the paper. It’s art, so use as many or little as you want and place them around, wherever you’d like.

STEP 5

1:24

Shine the UV light onto the paper for 2 whole minutes! Hold it up so that the beam of light touches the edges, covering the paper all the way around.

STEP 6

3:27

Move the leaves out of the way and wash off your paper in the sink for 5 seconds. Then, use the blue paper towel to dry off your paper.

STEP 7

4:51

If you let it sit and dry for one day, it will get even darker blue.

STEP 8

6:09

You have a couple of extra sheets in your black bag, so you can take one outside and use the sun. Just place your objects ontop first, then place it in the sun for 5 minutes.

STEP 9

6:20

You can use anything you want, it doesn’t have to be the leaves, so get creative!

STEP 10

7:02

Shine the light again for 2 minutes. If you want an even darker blue, you can shine the light for 3 minutes.

STEP 11

8:04

Move all the stuff off of your paper and rinse it off with water for 5 seconds. Then, you can leave it out to dry.

How It Works

This is just regular paper coated with a special blue material. It’s a mixture of two chemicals, Potassium Hexacyanoferrate and Ferric Ammonium Citrate. When these chemicals are mixed together, it makes blue and is what is covering our paper. Without any light, all of it just washes away with water. But when you shine the UV light on this material a chemical reaction happens where the light hits it, it can no longer be washed away. When you wash the paper with water, the parts that did not get any light wash away, and the parts that got exposed to light stay blue, leaving you with a beautiful piece of artwork. The longer you shine the light the stronger that blue sticks, so it will make your artwork an even deeper color of blue.

You’ll notice this color pattern looks like a blueprint. Well, this is the exact method people used a hundred years ago to make blueprints. This process works with any source of UV light, it can also be done with the help of the sun.

Blue Print Paper

Materials

Instructions

How It Works

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Blue Print Paper

Materials

Instructions

How It Works

Back to AllExperiments in The Kit

Watch NextExperiment

Start Your 30-Day Free Access

Last Step:Create Account

Back to All
Experiments in The Kit

Watch Next
Experiment

Start Your 30-Day
Free Access

Last Step:
Create Account