Simple magic tricks using stationery: recommended tricks for parties and performances
We’re introducing quick and easy magic tricks you can casually perform during school or work breaks, or as icebreakers at parties.
All the tricks featured in this article use stationery you can always find at school or the office!
Isn’t it great that, without any special props or advanced skills like a magician, you can quickly entertain people around you with familiar, everyday items like stationery?
These are magic tricks you can do anywhere as long as you have some stationery, so try mastering a few and liven up the moment!
Simple magic tricks using stationery: recommended tricks for parties and performances (1–10)
The pencil is cut in half and then goes back together!?
A box that just fits a pencil, with a window so you can see the pencil inside.
After confirming it’s in, you slide the box up and down as is… the pencil splits into two, cleanly in half.
But when you slide the box back, the pencil is restored to a single, intact piece—a magic trick.
Have you ever seen on a TV show where a person gets into a box and the box is split into two? This is that trick done with a pencil.
When you see the secret revealed, you find the box is a bit elaborately made, with two halves of a pencil preloaded.
But even after knowing the secret, it still only looks like the pencil is split in two, doesn’t it?
A magic trick where an eraser turns into a pen
Magic using stationery is easy to perform, since many people always have an eraser or a pen on hand.
In this trick, you make an eraser vanish, then make it reappear and transform it into a pen—without needing to prepare or gimmick the eraser or pen.
You pretend to transfer the eraser held in your left hand to your right hand, but you actually keep it in the left, tipping it inward and palming it.
You also secretly hide the pen in your palm and produce it smoothly, switching it into the hand that seemed to hold the eraser while you once again tip the eraser inward into your palm.
That’s all there is to it—yet with the right presentation, it becomes a truly astonishing piece of magic!
Simple magic you can do with a pen and an eraser
Erase an eraser just by tapping!? This is a simple magic trick using only a pen and an eraser.
First, tap the hand holding the eraser three times with the pen and “make the pen disappear.” At this point, the pen is merely hooked on your ear, so it can be easily discovered.
However, that step is the key to the trick! While everyone’s eyes are on the pen, secretly hide the eraser you’re holding in your pocket or elsewhere.
By then, the eraser is already gone from your hand, so when you tap your hand with the pen again, it looks as if the eraser has vanished.
Guide the audience’s gaze skillfully to pull it off.
Disappearing Pen Magic
It’s a magic trick you can do anywhere as long as you have a pen and a pocket: the pen you toss into the air seems to vanish! Hold the pen with both hands, pretend to throw it, and secretly stick it against the palm side of your hand so the audience can’t see it.
While directing their attention to the idea that the pen has vanished after the “throw,” switch it to your other hand during your patter, put that hand into your pocket, and then pull the pen out as if it had been there all along—success! Practice storing the pen quickly, adjusting your angles to keep it hidden, and keeping the routine smooth.
A safety pin that connects and detaches
It’s a magic trick where separate safety pins, which should be securely closed, end up sticking together when you fiddle with them casually, clacking around.
Then, even though you’re just sliding them smoothly as usual, the safety pins come apart again—they detach.
This trick is called the “Linking Pins,” and as you can see, it’s about pins linking and unlinking.
I have no idea how it works at first glance, but the secret is that one of the pins isn’t actually fastened—it’s open.
You skillfully hide that part with your fingers and use it to thread through and unlink the pins.
Magic that changes the color of a pen
As long as you have a pen, you can perform the “color-changing pen” magic trick anywhere.
In this trick, the pen’s color changes instantly at the magician’s cue.
It looks flashy, so it’s perfect as an opener.
By the way, the secret is simple: hold pens of different colors in your left and right hands and just switch them.
The key is to hide the pen smoothly behind your hand.
This move can be applied to other tricks too, so give it some practice.
And make sure you don’t get injured by a pen accidentally poking you!
Birthday-guessing magic trick
A groundbreaking magic trick where the calculator is the star.
You have the participant hold a calculator and perform a special calculation.
From the final number, you astonishingly reveal their birthday and age.
While it includes a mathematical element—subtracting a certain number from the final result instantly yields the birthday and age—once you memorize the method, the audience will respond with amazement.