I'm planning a children's event where the 'birthday child' is to be my assistant. All my magic goes wrong, and all theirs works perfectly. Towards the end I want to tear up my 'Magician's Certificate' in disgust. Birthday child will ask for the pieces. I will drop one piece as I hand the rest to them. They open it up and it is restored minus the missing piece. So far, nice and easy.

I want to show that all my magic hasn't gone, and restore the missing piece. I have a couple of ideas as to how I could do this, but I'm not really happy with either. Can anyone point me in a suitable direction please?

Wiz Kid Eleazar solved a similar problem in his "Ultimate Newspaper Tear" from his book "Tear-able Magic" on my site. He wanted to "accidentally" drop a piece of the torn newspaper before resoring it, restore the paper wityh the piece missing, look about on the floor for the piece and press it to the newspaper making it "fuse" into place to become fully restored. I don't know if his solution and method would work with the certificate as well as it does with newspaper, but you might want to check it out.

Thanks. I'll take a look at that.

Maybe you could even combine your neat idea with a no-tear paper; so you won´t even manage to tear up your certificate, in contrast to the young volunteer...