Your muscles become stronger the more that you use them.  That is why people go to gyms to exercise.  Your creativity also becomes stronger the more that you use it.  Here is a creative exercise.

This will make sense only to those people who have purchased a color changing streamer.  The one difficulty is that sometimes the inner layer gets covered completely with the outer sleeve.  That makes it difficult to operate.  I have tried different solutions over the years and have found one that I think works very well.  I shortened the outer sleeve a little by hemming it up.  Now the inner layer is always instantly accessible.

Sometimes creativity consists of combining existing ideas from two different sources.

Duane Laflin introduced a new product called the Sunfire Blendo a year ago.  It incorporates the Color Changing Streamer into his Laflin style blendo.  (I describe his method of performing a blendo in Volume Three pages 226-231.)  In his new version you pick up a colored streamer and give it a shake.  The streamer changes to a black one.  Then you gather up the streamer and suddenly it transforms into a 36-inch scarf that is black plus the four colors that had been in the streamer.  Since it is a product that Duane is selling I won't reveal the changes that he has made in the set up, but it is a very clever idea.  I also like the design of the new Sunfire scarf so in addition to purchasing the blendo routine I purchased a second unprepared scarf for use in other routines.

Arthur Pedlar, an International Clown Hall of Fame inductee, said, "Clowning is different from all the other circus acts in that it is the only one based on thought."  Magicians sometimes do things simply because they can.  (Something done for no other reason than it is visually pleasing is sometimes referred to as eye candy.)  As a clown I try to have a reason for everything that I do.  I loved Duane's new product, but there seemed to be a step missing logically.

It has been my pleasure over the years to see the Puckett Family at Fellowship of Christian Magician regional conferences and at the Magic Show Conference.  Each time that I saw them, the two oldest boys would show me something new that they had been working on.  They are very creative and I was always impressed with what they had come up with.  Several years ago, Matthew Puckett demonstrated a bit that he performed with a Color Changing Streamer.  When he gave the colored streamer a shake, four small scarves floated through the air and the streamer was black.  It looked like he had shaken the colors right off the streamer.  (He had put four six-inch silk scarves inside the outer sleeve.)

There was the missing step in Duane's routine.  I contacted Matthew and received his permission to use his idea.  By combining Duane's idea with Matthew's idea I now pick up the colored streamer.  I give it a shake, and the streamer turns black.  The audience immediately calls my attention to the four small colored scarves lying on the floor.  I pick them up and bunch them up with the streamer.  I squeeze them as if I am trying to force them back together.  Suddenly they merge into the beautiful 36-inch Sunfire design scarf.

Matthew has graciously given me permission to share his idea with my subscribers.

Look at the routines that you do.  Is there a step missing in your character's thought process?  What can you incorporate that will logically fill the gap?  When you purchase a new product, ask yourself, "What do I already know that can be incorporated into this?"

For purchasing information for the Sunfire Silk Scarf or Sunfire Blendo contact Duane Laflin at laflinmagic@yahoo.com.

I was saddened to recently learn that Don Brisbane passed away in January. Don was a member of the Northwest Ring of Fire, a local group in Lynnwood, WA affiliated with the International Brotherhood of Magicians.  He was a very creative individual and I always looked forward to seeing what he would perform during the Open Mike portion of each club meeting.  He created the Will the Color Match routine that is described on page 146 of volume three.  (After he purchased a copy of my book, he told me that I made one small mistake.  His routine used pictures of cats not rabbits.  Then with a twinkle in his eye, he added, "Well I guess that is a change you can make when you do the next edition.")

A few months after he read my book Don contacted me to make sure I would be at the next meeting.  (Because I often have a schedule conflict on the night of the meeting I am not able to attend very often.)  An idea prompt on page 148 reads, "What cards or other objects could you use?"  Don wanted to surprise me by demonstrating a routine that had inspired.  He did a very funny routine with pairs of socks and the phrase "Will The Socks Match."  Each sock was in a separate envelope.  At the end all of the socks matched a mate that was the same color, except for the last two.  They were two different colors.  He acted confused for a moment and then pulled up his pant's legs revealing that he was wearing a mismatched pair of socks that was the same two colors as the final pair in the magic effect.  He was the first I saw to actually use the Card Match principle with solid objects.