stone frixion fire Archives - Stone Cold Magic Magazine

Memorable Magic Moments with Business Cards

Jeff Stone — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 00:04:37 +0000

Do you stroll? Do you hop? Do you “street”? If you do, then you’ll likely be in a position where you might be able to book another show from your strolling/hopping/streeting audience members.

The key is that they must know that you do other shows. Naturally, then, the question is how do you tell them? The answer as I’m sure you’ve guessed is to give them your business card. This presumes a couple of things one is that you have cards, but further that they are worthy of you and your image.

Please . . . no bunnies, no top hats . . . That’s all the advice you get for now. This particular article will focus on how to get the business card into someone’s hand. What follows is the basic concept followed by some very simple and basic ideas . . . you’ll need to fill in the gaps.

With what shall we fill them you may ask . . .

With your imagination I may answer.

The Basic Concept

Frankly, I would expect that most of the material found in this article will mostly be nothing new. However, I’m hoping that you’ll find value in a having a few resources and ideas all in one place. You’ve heard it before . . . use your business card in a magic effect. Involve their business card as well. Involved your business card in the effect in such a way that requires the spectator to hold or handle your business card.

Simple and Basic Ideas

Use your business cards for billets (assuming they have a blank side)
When using business cards, refer to parts of the card (e.g., Joan, just sign your name right there next to my web address . . .)
Have force cards/dates/etc. printed on your business card
Use them to write your predictions
Use them to perform a three card monte routine by drawing a black X on two of the cards, and a red X
Use them for spirit writing . . . having the message appear on the back of your card
Do a rising card effect with a signed business card

Think through your repertoire . . . what effects could easily incorporate a business card or two?

There are several resources available to inspire ideas:

In my DVD, Stone Frixion Fire almost every effect uses a business card. Plus there’s fire!
Michael Ammar’s Easy To Master Business Card Miracles is also an excellent resource.
Jay Sankey has a couple of DVDs that focus on Business Card Magic:
- Business Card Miracles is entirely focused on business cards
- The Real Work on Restaurants & Bars has some cool ideas with business cards
- Supernatural also has some excellent business card ideas
Many, many, many others have contributed . . . to name them all would be impossible.

Finally, I highly recommend you read Jeff McBride’s article in his latest book, The Show Doctor entitled Memory Loss (Chapter 14).

Until Next Month . . .

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The Magic of Business Cards

Jeff Stone — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 00:04:27 +0000

Last month the statement/question was, “You don’t have a camera? Really!?” This month it’s “You don’t do magic with your business cards? Really!?”

I’m not gonna spend a lot of time convincing you that magic with business cards is critical. However, think of this: you meet someone on a plane or standing in line at the grocery store or at a networking meeting, etc. The guy asks you what you do for a living. You say that you’re a magician (or whatever you call yourself). Then you produce a business card from thin air (back palm or whatever method you choose).

You don’t need to say or do much more than that.

Of course, you don’t have to produce the card. You could use it to write down a quick prediction or you could use some of the Frixion pen ideas found on my Stone Frixion Fire DVD. The point is that as a magician if you’re going to hand out your business card, it better be in a magical way. I remember getting a business card from a guy who was a wood worker. The business card was actually printed on a super thin piece of wood. Perfect. No. That doesn’t mean that you should print your business card on a playing card.

First of all, you won’t be the first magician to do that. Secondly, that implies that a playing card encapsulates and is equal to “magician.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Think outside of the box. Meanwhile, check out a couple of other resources for tricks you can do with your business card:

Easy to Master Business Card Miracles By Michael Ammar

Additionally, Jay Sankey has a DVD called Miracles With Your Business Cards. However, good luck finding a copy of it. They’re hard to find.

There are plenty of others out there. Search your favorite magic store.

One final note: when you choose effects to do in the case of merely handing out your card, you’ll want to look for effects that are clear, quick, simple and possibly visual. The last thing you need to do is to break out a 9 phase routine while standing in line at Walmart.

If you want to make an impression on a potential client, perform something with your business card. Duh.

Until Next Month . . .

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Glowing Review by Dean of McBride School of Magic and Mystery

Jeff Stone — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 00:08:50 +0000

Larry Hass Reviews Stone Frixion Fire

At this point, you’re probably aware (since I announced it in a separate email) that Larry Hass, Ph.D. gave a glowing review of my Frixion book. You can view that review by clicking on the video icon. In honor of his glowing review I’m offering a 33% discount on the e-book that expires this Wednesday (9/14/11). Check it out here: Stone Frixion Fire

Brain Dump

Currently the working title on my latest book project is Brain Dump. It’s a fitting title certainly and was suggested to me by my friend and fellow magi when I told him that this book was basically a brain dump of all of my mentalism, mind, psychology ideas in my journals. He replied with, “that’s a good name for the book.”

He’s probably right. However, if you’ve got a better title, I’m all ears. Post your titles suggestions in the comment box below. If I use your title you’ll get a free copy of the book when it’s done. It’s coming along nicely. I’ve got a ton of writing done. The hope is to release the book mid to late fall. Right now, the only plans are to release it as an e-book.

Other Projects

Likely, “Brain Dump” will be the only other release (besides Tarot Below Zero) this year. However, I’ve got a few things in the works for next year. I’ll keep you posted as things progress. I’ve got a couple of other non-magic books that I’m co-authoring as well. One is sort of magic related . . . it’s a magic-centric novel. Additionally I’m working on a co-author quasi-religious series of books and a solo authoring of another quasi-religious book. Those three non-magic projects will take me into next year for sure.

Reviews

Many of you visit this site strictly for the reviews. I’ve developed quite the reputation out there of not being afraid to speak the truth no matter whose feelings I hurt. I should just point out, briefly, that my intentions are not to hurt feelings, only give the truth. If my rhetoric has been insulting I truly am sorry. I’m just seeking the truth and offering you loyal readers some guidance on where you spend your hard-earned money. More recently I’ve been very careful attempting to be more diplomatic toward the creator (not the creation). I’ve adopted the love the sinner, not the sin kind of attitude.

If any of you out there are creators, and would like your material reviewed on the site I’ll happily add you to the stack of stuff, and because you’re a loyal reader, I’ll bump your products to the top of the list . . . and it’s a darn big list by the way, so if you’ve recently released something and want a review relatively quickly, let me know.

You can mail the product here:

Stone Cold Magic Magazine Reviews
3367 South 6400 West
Salt Lake City, Utah
84128

For virtual products, you can email them to me here:
Product Reviews Email

Writers

Stone Cold Magic Magazine has been publishing monthly ever single month (sometimes a little late) since July of 2007 . . . That’s over 4 years! Over the years we’ve had some excellent guest columnists:

Jay Sankey
David Acer
Harry Lorayne
Danny Archer
Don Theo III
Geoff Williams
Oliver Meech
“Grandpa” Chet Cox
Cameron Francis
Dan Paulus
Brad “Scarnecky” Gordon
Donny Orbit
Diamond Jim “The Cardslinger” Davis

Just to name a few. If you’d like to add your name to this prestigious list, send me a brief email explaining what column you’re most interested in contributing to:
Guest Columnist Email

Tarot Below Zero

Tarot Below Zero/Spectral Chill was written up in the August Issue of Magicseen Magazine . . . The one with Richard Sanders on the cover. You can subscribe to Magicseen at Lybrary.

Testimonials

Finally, you may have noticed that in the top right navigation is a new link for Testimonials. You’ll find a small sample of some of the happy customers, friends and reviewers of Stone Cold Magic products. I’ll keep updating this so make sure you check it out on a regular basis.

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Fix A Flat

Jeff Stone — Fri, 20 May 2011 00:07:00 +0000

Effect:

A picture of a car with a flat tire magically changes to a picture of a repaired tire.

Method:

What you are about to read is right out of my e-book, Stone Frixion Fire. This is one of the many ideas you’ll find in this book. The book, for the unfamiliar, is entirely dedicated to ideas and effects that can be done with a Frixion® Pen – Heat Sensitive Ink. Frixion pens can be found at most office supply stores or at Staples Online. When heat is applied to the ink, it vanishes.

In the case of this method, Have the pre-drawn car on one side of a blank business card stock using regular ink (represented in blue). After the ink dries, adjust the car to show the flat tire as in the photograph below using frixion ink (represented in red). Of course, you’ll want to use the same color for both regular and frixion ink. On the other side of the business card have the words “Apply Heat” printed or written in regular ink.

Notes:

Most stationary stores carry business card paper that you can use to create business cards on your computer. You can use Avery template 8371 as one example.

Go to Avery’s website and you can actually use their online templates to print out your own business cards.

I don’t recommend making your personal business cards this way. However, making Joe Slick the Tire Salesman’s business card is just fine (see presentation below).

You can make it simple and just put “Apply Heat” on the one side, or you can go all out and print his name, phone number, etc. Finally, hand-draw the car on the back of the card.

Fix a Flat Presentation

I recently ran into a tire salesman. He gave me this business card.

Show the “Apply Heat” side of the card.

He claims that they have a new kind of tire that can heal itself, if it ever becomes flat, by simply applying heat.

Show the other side of the card that has the picture of the car and flat tire on it.
He said that this card was proof of his outrageous claim.

Turn the card face down and show the “Apply Heat” side face-up. Then directly apply the flame of a lighter to the car picture. Then turn it over to “see if it worked.”

I don’t believe it. It worked!

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Ironic Baby, Dead Thieves and Infections

Jeff Stone — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 21:49:12 +0000

Ironic Baby

Well . . . April was a long month and a lot of exciting things happened, and most of them were very magical . . . First as you, likely, know, our daughter Oliveah was born on April 11. We later discovered that her name means “peace.” However, her middle name, Gail (named after grandma), means “Spirited One.” Thus her name basically means “Peaceful Spirited One.” Her nick-name is Irony . . . It’s also, Livey, Liv, Olive, Liveah, and Little O. You can see how cute she is on facebook.

Dead Thieves

I’ve got my Google account set up to send me alerts whenever certain key words are indexed. Usually I’m looking for key words like my name, my product names, etc so I can see when Google indexes other magic shops or reviews, etc. Well imagine my surprise, when I followed a link to a site that was selling my Stone Frixion Fire e-book. Of course he had no permission to do so, and when I spoke with him, he claimed that since it was copyrighted for 2005, he could do whatever he wanted with it because it’s been over 5 years.

First of all . . . retard . . . the book didn’t even exist in 2005. It was copyrighted, originally, in 2009. Secondly, even if 2005 were correct, copyrights don’t expire in 5 years, and finally, even if they did, that doesn’t mean that someone can just commandeer my ebook.

He said he would take down my book, but he never did; then suddenly, one day, his site no longer exists. The copyright gods are smiling down on Stone Cold Magic.

Infections

Finally, I got way behind on everything . . . including the April 2011 issue of the magazine. I was out of commission for a few days last week. I had a big ugly spider bite on my right hand that required an I.V. treatment which basically disabled my left hand (the I.V. catheter was in my left wrist) for three days. Anyway, I couldn’t use my computer for a few days . . . no hands = no typing.

Magical

I told you . . . all the stuff in April was magical. The miracle and magic of birth blessed our home. The miracle and magic of the death of a thief’s site and the miracle and magic of antibiotics made me whole again. Enjoy the Real Magic in life and don’t confuse it with the Magic you read about in April’s Issue of Stone Cold Magic Magazine.

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Dropin The Bomb

Jeff Stone — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 00:07:26 +0000

Effect:
Openly show a drawing that looks like a Rubik’s Cube on a 3 by 5 index card. Tell your audience that it’s a Rubik’s Cube. Hold the card in your hand as the spectator crumbles up a piece of “magic paper” and places it on the drawing.

As she lights the paper, the drawing appears to melt through the card and fall through the paper and become real. That’s right, a real live mini Rubik’s Cube that can be handed out.

Method:
This is just a variation on the Evanescence effects found in the Stone Frixion Fire DVD and e-book. Rather than the object being wrapped up in the flash paper, you have a mini Rubik’s Cube finger-palmed, and you drop it as the flash paper goes up in flames. The three photos below should help clarify.

Setup:
You’ll want a key-chain cube for this effect. Take the key chain off. As for drawing the cube, refer back to Rubik’s Cubin’ (an earlier effect in the book).The difference is that every color needs to be done with Frixion® ink. Start by drawing the squares with a black Frixion® pen. Next, fill in the squares with different colors.

You only need to use 3 colors. You can use a fourth color if you’d like, but a drawing like the one above in the middle communicates “mixed up cube.” Unlike Rubik’s Cubin’ (From Stone Frixion Fire), in this effect the cubes don’t have to be fully colored in. The drawing just needs to be colorful and look mixed up.

I would suggest having several cards made up and ready to go in your shirt pocket. Have the cube in your left pants pocket. You could also use the highlighters here, but I find that the pens work just fine.

Handling:
Show the card with the cube drawing on it. You can use the presentational angle (what do you think of when I say “1980’s”) from Rubik’s Cubin’ for this trick.As you hand out a piece of flash paper to the spectator, secretly steal the cube out of your pocket into finger palm. Next, hold the card between your two hands as in the middle photo on the previous page.

Ask the spectator to place the “magic paper” on the drawing of the cube. Just before you have her light it, ask someone else to cup his/her hands together beneath yours. As a spectator lights the paper, the flame will provide enough misdirection to simply open and close your right fingers allowing the cube to appear in the spectator’s hand.

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Frixion is on Fire

Jeff Stone — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 00:08:38 +0000

Stone Frixion Fire is Unstopable

The Tarot Book broke some serious records in just one week. But it still hasn’t been able to surpass the ubiquitous Stone Frixion Fire. It’s still the all time number one best seller. Check out what Dr. Lawrence Hass the Associate Dean of the McBride Magic & Mystery School had to say about it:

Jeff Stone’s Stone Frixion Fire is currently the definitive source for learning how to create magic with the new Frixion pen. It offers a careful analysis of previous tricks with the pen, essential tips for using it deceptively, and over twelve magic effects to perform with it. One of Jeff’s tricks immediately went into my professional repertoire.

The trick he’s referring to that went into his repertoire was the free trick of the month, Money To Burn, in the July 2009 issue.

You can additionally see Dr. Hass’s Review on McBride TV. Click the Link to the left and skip ahead to minute 57. After watch/hearing was Dr. Hass has to say about Stone Frixion Fire, you’ll order it today!

Magic Podcast

If you’re not already a subscriber to the MagicWire podcast, do it now! Especially the most recent issue with Jay Sankey. It was a great interview, and the podcast is free of course.

Audio Interview with Eugene Burger Winners

Last month, we announced that if your question made the cut in the Eugene Burger interview, you would win a $10 gift certificate for Stone Cold Magic.

Though there were many great questions, only questions from 3 people were able to be squeezed in. The winners are:

Kevin McDaid
Steven Bagienski
Geoff Williams

You will each be sent an email containing your gift certificate.

Bicycle Cards For $1.00 at Walmart

I was just a Walmart the other day, and they had a section called “As Seen on TV.” In it, they had the new “Standard Bicycle” 2 packs for $2.00. I don’t know if it’s this way everywhere, but I thought I’d pass it on. If you have a deck of “The Standard” cards, here are a couple of great effects you can do with them:

The Standard – By Diamond Jim Davis
Camera Trick – by Dan Paulus

Placebo Syncronicity

In the January 2011 issue, I wrote an article called Placebo Magic. A short time later, a couple of my magic buds pointed out that Eric Mead has a T.E.D. video on the very same subject with the very same title, though a bit different angle. I watched the other day and really enjoyed it. You can check it out here: Eric Mead – Placebo Magic.

Enjoy the March 2011 issue. See ya’ll next month.

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Ask Eugene Burger Anything!

Jeff Stone — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 00:08:20 +0000

Record Tarot Sales

Well folks . . . we did it. In just one short week, Spectral Chill/Tarot Below Zero out sold every single product (except for the Stone Frixion Fire E-book) in the history of Stone Cold Magic! Thank you all so much for your interest in the book. You made it a huge success. For the few of you who don’t yet have it, get it here: Tarot Below Zero.

Just for fun I thought I’d remind you all of the kooky saga story from February 2009 . . . Spectral Chill.

Interview with Eugene Burger

So . . . Eugene Burger has agreed to do a phone interview for Stone Cold Magic Magazine! Woo Hoo! I’d like to interview him for the March issue, so what do you want to ask him? Shoot me an email with whatever questions you want me to ask Eugene. I’ll try my best to squeeze ’em all in the phone call.

Goodbye to Brad Gordon’s E-book: Room 538

Stone Cold Magic will be discontinuing the sale of Brad’s Room 538. I knew this day would come – it’s how Brad and I planned it, but it’s still sad to see it go. As of this coming Thursday (3/3/11) at midnight, Room 538 will no longer be available at Stone Cold Magic, so for the send off party, we’re cutting the price to 50% off for the next couple of days. After that, it’s gone. If you’ve been waiting to get his book, stop waiting . . . it’s time now. At 11:59 PM PST on Thursday Night (3/3/11) this product will no longer be available. So order it now!

Brand New Site!

As you probably noticed, the Magazine Site has undergone a make over. With that make over comes streamlined code and improved functionality and features. Here are just a few:

You can now print any article as a pdf – on any article page, click the pdf icon in the upper right corner of the header
Social media integration – You can now share the articles on various social media sites . . . you’ll find the links at the bottom of each article
Archive Pages – You can now view the column archives and past issue archives by clicking on the appropriate links at the top right corner of the page
Subscribe to Comments – Subscribe to any article that you comment on and you’ll be immediately updated when a new comment is made . . . this keeps the article lively!
Home Page Updates – On the home page, you’ll now see a rotating list of the most recent articles in the most recent issue

Hopefully you’ll find the new updates useful. If you have any suggestions for improvements, please email me.
Enjoy the February Issue!

Jeffro

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News From Sankey, Ammar and Stone Cold Magic

Jeff Stone — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 00:08:50 +0000

4.5 Stars For Stone Frixion Fire

For those of you who haven’t jumped on board the Frixion Freight Train, now’s the time. The My Lovely Assistant site, known for it’s directness and honest in reviews has given Stone Frixion Fire a 4.5 (out of 5 stars) rating. As you may know, I am an “official reviewer” at this site. However, other than Eugene Burger and Joe Diamond, I’ve never met any of the other Official Reviewers. Their reputation is on the line with their reviews, so you’ll find them refreshing. Check out what they had to say about my Stone Frixion Fire DVD. Then when you’re done with the review there, go buy it here: Stone Cold Magic. For the next 10 days, it’ll be 17% off. It normally goes for $30.00, but until Friday (2/11/11) it will be $25.00. Of course, as always, FREE INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING!

New Jay Sankey Blog

For all you Sankey fans, you may know that I moonlight as Sankey Magic’s web developer. The latest and greatest from Sankey Magic is Jay’s new blog. You don’t wanna miss it. There are (and will be) some killer posts about everything you can imagine when it comes to magic. Check it out here: Jay’s Blog.

New Michael Ammar Site

I recently found a new site for all you Ammar Fans. Any fan knows that Michael Ammar is a master teacher, and his Easy to Master series is one of the best tools of our time for learning the trade. Now those effects are available for instant download on his new site, World’s Greatest Magic.

Enough With The Tarot Promise Already

Last but not least . . . the News section wouldn’t be complete with another update on a way overdue project. The Tarot Project is actually very close. I was able to spend a lot of time on it last week. I truly am hoping for a release by the end of February 2011. Wish me luck!

Enjoy the rest of this month’s issue!

The post News From Sankey, Ammar and Stone Cold Magic appeared first on Stone Cold Magic Magazine.

Secrets Revealed

Jeff Stone — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 00:08:56 +0000

Genii Publishes Stone Cold Magic

You heard right folks. In the January 2011 (The Houdini Issue) Issue of Genii Magazine published my effect Burnin’ Time from Stone Frixion Fire. The write up, By David Acer, is on page 22. If you don’t have that issue, get it: Genii January 2011.

Discontinuing E-Book – HUGE Discount

As of January 7th, 2011 the Stone Cold Magic E-book will no longer be available individually. You will only be able to get it with Stone Cold Magic DVD. However, until the 7th, I’m offering it for nearly 70% Off!

You can get it now for only $4.95. That’s the best price you’re ever gonna see on this product. Get it now, because after January 7th, 2011, you won’t be able to get it at all (unless you buy the DVD).

Or order the Stone Frixion Fire E-Book and get the Stone Cold Magic E-Book For Free!

Brand New Version of Stone Frixion Fire

The Stone Frixion Fire e-book has been updated and is now on its third edition! In the past, the printed version of the book (sold at my lectures and retailers) was a bit different from the electronic version. It keeps on selling out, so with the last wholesale reorder, I totally revamped the book and decided to make the electronic version and the printed version the same. The electronic version now has:

A ton of updated content
Brand new effects from Mike Skutt, Chris Kavanaugh and Dan Paulus
Forewords By Jay Sankey and Brad Gordon
A ton of other things

Those of you who have already purchased the e-book (from me, Lybrary, Hidden Bookshelf or Elmwood) can log in to your accounts and re-download the book for free. Unless you bought it within the past 2 weeks, you’ve got the older version, so you’ll want to update it for free.

Everyone else who hasn’t ordered it already, now’s the time folks: Stone Frixion Fire E-Book. If you order it now, you’ll get the Stone Cold Magic E-Book for FREE!

Order Now!

A New YouTube Video Every Day!

Many of you know my friend Eric LeClerc. He was one of the guest artists (along with myself and Joe Diamond) on Jay Sankey’s Underground Jam. Eric is hosting a brand new show on YouTube . . . Project 365. He will be posting a brand new trick on YouTube every single day for the entire year of 2011! Check out his new channel and subscribe to it: The Lecleric Show.

Secrets Revealed

Last month, the Roots and Branches article was all about secrets. If you haven’t read it yet, make sure you do. It’s a great Q&A session with Me and Brad Gordon: Secrets. At the end, I told you to stay tuned for the December issue where I would reveal the biggest secret of all . . . where here it is. My wife is pregnant with #5. It’s a girl, and she’s due on April 15th, 2011. How’s that for an awesome secret.

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