This is a collection of magic trick ideas that use various kinds of boxes.
We’ll introduce a range of tricks: some where you can make your own gimmicks using candy boxes or tissue boxes, and others you can perform with technique using items like playing card boxes or matchboxes.
It’s great for finding tricks to perform as entertainment, and the gimmick-making projects seem fun to tackle with small children, too.
Please use it as a reference, and if you find a trick that looks interesting, give it a try!
- [Surprising] A collection of body-based magic tricks [for parties and performances]
- With Explanations: Easy Magic Tricks for Lower-Grade Elementary School Children — How to Do Simple Tricks
- Hilarious magic! Crowd-pleasing tricks perfect for parties and performances
- [Childcare Magic] Easy! A special feature on magic tricks you’ll want to show kids
- Magic tricks with hats: recommended illusions for parties and performances
- [2026] Party-Perfect! A Roundup of Recommended Magic Tricks
- Simple magic tricks that delight kids: surprising to watch and make you want to try them yourself.
- Magic with capes! A roundup of cloak tricks that will amaze you at first sight
- [For Kids] Magic Tricks You Can Perform at Daycare or Kindergarten
- Easy! Magic tricks that liven up a Christmas party. Simple tricks and their secrets revealed.
- [For Upper Grades] Simple Magic Tricks for Elementary School Students: Astonishing and Impressive Magic
- Magic tricks using bags. Mysterious tricks with paper bags and plastic bags.
- Ranking of Popular Magic Tricks
Magic tricks using boxes: recommended tricks for parties and performances (1–10)
Disappearance and Appearance of the Card Box
When you think of the stars of magic, isn’t card magic the first thing that comes to mind? It’s easy to carry around, there are lots of different tricks, and many are perfect for beginners.
Here’s a vanishing trick that pretends to be a card trick: you take the cards out of the box, and in an instant the box disappears… Then just as you’re wondering where the box went, it instantly reappears.
The secret is to cut out just the top panel and the lid of the box and use them, with a card attached to the back.
When you fold the lid, it looks like a playing card.
By changing whether the “lid” is shown and how you hold it, you can make the box appear or vanish at will!
Anywhere Box
A magical-looking box where, when you cast a spell on an empty box, all sorts of things appear.
There’s a trick to the box, and once you make it, you can use it over and over.
You can probably make it with things you have at home: an empty shoebox, some fabric to line the inside, and a flat board to put inside.
The trick is to place a board covered with the same fabric as the inside lining into the box at an angle, and hide toys or other items behind it.
From the front, the inside of the box looks empty.
It seems like something even children could make easily.
Magic using a Pringles can
Using an empty Pringles can and a plastic bottle cap, it starts as a seemingly common trick where a cap appears from an upside-down can.
You might think, “Isn’t that a bit basic? And aren’t they just producing a cap hidden in their hand?” But then—bam! A potato, the very ingredient of Pringles, appears, and in the grand finale the can becomes an unopened Pringles can.
It’s a shockingly over-the-top routine! As you might guess, the first bottle cap is transferred to the other hand while pretending to pocket it, then placed behind the can to make it look like it came from inside.
The potato uses a variation of that: you secretly take out one that was in your pocket from the start and drop it into the empty can.
For the finale, swap the prop with a brand-new, sealed Pringles can you’ve kept under the table, and it’s perfect!
You can’t guess a matchbox that has something inside it.
Three identical matchboxes are lined up.
Only one contains matches; the other two are empty.
The box with matches makes a rattle when shaken, while the two empty boxes, of course, make no sound.
The rightmost matchbox is slyly switched around, and then comes the familiar trick: “Which one has the matches?” But it isn’t what you expect—no one can guess it, and you’re left wondering, why? That’s because all the matchboxes are empty! The magician has a match-filled box hidden up the right sleeve and simply holds and shakes with the right hand only when they want a box to rattle.
It’s an easy trick.
The card jumps into the box.
This is a magic trick where the selected card appears to move into an empty box.
Even though the lid stays closed the entire time, a mysterious scene unfolds right before your eyes.
The key to this trick is making it seem as if the chosen card is inside the empty box.
When the performer says, “The card is inside,” and shakes the box, you hear a rattling sound—but that’s just them tapping the box lightly with a fingernail.
The selected card actually remains in the deck; the magician skillfully gives the impression of taking it out of the box while secretly extracting it from the deck.
A playing card appears from an empty box.
I’d like to introduce a mysterious magic trick that you can’t help watching again and again—the kind that makes you want to say, “Do it one more time!” It looks like a deck of cards is inside a box, but when you open it, the box is empty.
Yet when you open the box again, all the cards appear properly inside.
The secret is that it’s a presentation trick using an empty box placed on top and folded.
After showing the empty box, you fold it and simply place it over the box that actually contains the cards.
When showing the empty box, you hide the box with the cards in the palm of your other hand, so you’ll need to practice that part of the handling.
The package changes in an instant.
It’s a blink-and-you-miss-it magic trick where, with just a wave of your hand, the package of a snack box instantly changes into a different one.
The secret is a simple gimmick you can easily make yourself.
Prepare two snack boxes of the same size but with different packaging.
On the box that will serve as the base, stick double-sided tape on the back to secure it to a table or other surface.
For the cover box, use only the front half of the package and embed a magnet on the inside.
Then place a magnet inside the hand you’ll be waving.
The top box will attach to the magnet and nestle into your hand as you lift it away—creating the transformation effect.