On aging paper

Occasionally when you are working to create your own props you find that you need to have paper that looks old. This is especially good for routines where the props are old books or maps. Nothing looks worse then when you are telling a story and you try to pass off something freshly printed from your computer as an old letter from several generations ago.

But paper is kind of delicate stuff isn't it?

Well, no, not really. Paper can take a pretty fair amount of abuse. And as such you can do some things to it which makes it look older then it actually is. Here then is a brief listing of different ways that you might use to make your paper look old.

1. For color, soak it in dark tea
2. To make sheets brittle, get them wet and then cook them in a low temp oven.
3. To yellow them just leave them out in the back of your car for about a month!
4. You can make paper look dirty by rubbing powdered chocolate on it.
(Yes, I know some people would consider that a waste of good chocolate.)
5. Use the microwave to cook ketchup or steak sauce onto the paper to get "dried blood."
6. Get sealing wax from your local art supply store and drip some on.
7. Get Violin Rosin from the music shop to rub on the paper for that "old" smell.

Sometimes it takes just a touch of creativity to make your props looks that much better, but when you do the payoff is amazing!

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Want to be a Magician?

Starting this April 16th, at the Boulder Creek Community Center I will be teaching magic classes!

There are two classes being offered.

First, a class specifically for adults and children together. What a great way to spend time with your kids, learning a skill which builds hand-eye coordination, self confidence and is great fun besides!

Second, a class specifically for adults only. Here we'll be examining more sophisticated magical techniques that you will be able to use to perform in most any situation and even build your own effects from!

Want to know more?

Sign up now at the Boulder Creek Community Center or call: 1-831-338-4144 to reserve your spot!

Santiago the Magician
Enter a World of Elegant Magic
Santiago's Magic

And so it begins....

A long time project of mine is finally coming to fruition.

I have entered into negotiations with a publisher for my first book; Scrolls.

Scrolls is a collection of magic routines, essays and a one man play of magic effects based on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. If all goes well then it will be published sometime in the fall.

I can only begin to scratch the surface on how I feel about this. Every time I have had an article published I have been overjoyed. Being a writer is almost as much fun as being a magician, and I've wanted it for far longer. When some of my essays started to see print I became utterly enthralled with the idea of actually publishing a book. Like many people I've even started half a dozen different novels and like many people those novels remain unfinished.

But creating a book of magic was something different and now, here I am, talking with a publisher!

Wish me luck, and believe me, if this all comes together you can bet you'll be hearing about it and where to buy it!

Santiago

Spammers at it again....

For anyone out there who is getting SPAM that says it's coming from the Santiagos Magic domain name, I do apologize. It isn't coming from me at all. Some SPAMMER has latched on to my domain name as a way to try and hide the source of the messages. You can tell this from a number of different ways, but primarily you can see it in the fact that the addresses used are nonsense. For example I never send out messages from:

dwsch@santiagosmagic.com

Any random assortment of letters before the @ is a sure sign it is a SPAMMER.

And for what it's worth, every day now I'm getting several hundred bounced messages instead of the jackass who is sending them.

Not a lot I can do about it, but there is something you can do about it.

If you happen to get a SPAM from what appears to be my domain, or really ANY SPAM, please use the on-line SPAM reporting tool: SPAMCOP.

This tool will allow you to run the SPAM through a quick process that generates email complaints to the actual network administrators of the domains and ISP's really being used. Those people can shut the offenders down.

It's free and it works. I've been using it for years now.

Thanks,

Santiago