Spring flowers have been a topic in magic for more than 100 years. Ever since Buatier de Kolta invented them, they have been a fixed component in magician’s repertoires. It is sad that the flowers available from dealers look just outright crappy and cheap.
One source I know of which deals with better looking spring flowers and how to make them, is a manuscript from Professor Spellbinder in the Wizard’s Journal (the specific article is called ‘How to make spring flowers more realistic’). This manuscript is worth a look up for everybody who plans to use artificial flowers in his act.
The Professor describes some ways to make truly astounding and realistic spring flowers, using artificial flowers for the construction in combination with some parts of the traditional spring flowers from the dealers.
Here are some more inspirations for spring flowers, which could let these old props shine in a more realistic way. Instead of using feathers and cheaply folded tissue paper, try using the more modern Origami folds in constructing the flowers.
Of course, certain things in the constructions would have to accordingly changed. As well, as steel spring (which could be taken from the commercially available flowers) should be added.
Her an instruction on how to fold a beautiful Origami flower, which can be squeezed flat and looks fantastic, if you use the right multi-colored paper:
And here some beautiful thing, which could be made even bigger (with more flowers) and in multi-color. This pop-up card is suitable to be built into all flat things and makes for a beautiful display:
The samples given here work fine, especially the folding card with the three-dimensional flower bouquet in the middle suggest many uses in magic tricks and is very easy to construct.
So I hope this thoughts will bring back that beautiful effects with flowers into nowadays magic.
Pass it on!