Dutch photographer/designer Nichon Glerum wanted to do something extra special for her son’s birth announcements. She decided to send out birth cards using the ancient technique of invisible ink. This technique, that many of us know from childhood, goes back thousands of years and can use various organic liquids to make the ink. This includes lemon juice, vinegar, saliva, sweat, urine, blood, and milk among many others. To reveal the hidden message, the recipient must apply heat, such as with fire, to the fibers of the paper.
“To me it just made sense. He’s so new to this world; he literally has a blank slate. Every page in his book still needs to be written. Nowadays people are overloaded with images and visuals, so especially for someone in my profession I thought it would be a bold choice to send out completely blank cards.
They went out in transparent envelopes, with a little white birthday candle as a hint on how to make the message appear. Also relevant as he was born on the darkest day of the year. (Plus, the flame is a little tongue in cheek reference to the fire that’s responsible for making babies in the first place!)” -Nichon Glerum
And since Glerum had been hearing so many stories about mothers in the US who have been publicly shamed for breastfeeding, she wanted to create this message as a show of solidarity… by using her own breastmilk as the organic liquid in her invisible message.
In the video above you can see the beautiful finished product of these cards. (Perhaps it will be an inspiration to those of you wanted to skip the traditional baby picture.)
