How to make balls vanish from both hands at once.

[Fireleaf]

Hello everyone, I'm (mostly) new to magic !

I wanted to do a trick that I thought would be very easy, showing a cotton ball in each of my hand, then close my hands and have them both be gone upon reopening.
To my disappointment I could only way to make a single ball disappear, by transferring it into the other hands.

Any help is appreciated. Thank you in advance !

 

[Arconik]

Like to figuring out or creating any magic trick, you have to think about the actual possibilties.
The cotton ball has either got to disappear by moving somewhere else without the spectator noticing, hide it from view (kinda alike the first) or change into something else that is hidden (black magic etc.). The latter doesn't really work so therefore we need to move the ball somewhere. Obviously the common idea of the other hand won't work in this situation, placing something into your pockets will be noticed, and you can't go up. In my mind you could either try and sleeve it wear you hide them within your sleeves. Or lap them. Its hard to explain the full concept of lapping but as you grow as a magician you will understand these concept more and more. Basically to lap you place your hands down past/near the edge of the table and carefully drop the balls from view.
You can practice and see what works best or for the situation (you can't lap if there is no table).
This is my way that I think about possible tricks but I am no where near as good as other people on this forum, but I hope understanding the thinking behind it as well helps, rather than me just saying to put them up or sleeve or drop them onto the floor...

 

[Fireleaf]

Thanks a lot for the answer, it's the first time I hear of lapping and that sounds very interesting. I considered sleeving while doing a arm-crossing theatrical hand-reveal motion but I'm reluctant to mess with sleeves since fire will be involved. (although obviously the cotton balls will be extinguished first, which is actually not an issue.) I wonder if flame-resistant clothing is a serious option. Glad to see the thought process, magic is much more interesting to engage as a creative art than as a collection of routines !

 

[ID4]

There are other methods to do this. One such would be using the principle behind Jay Sankey’s Nuts effect which is available on Sankey Very Much.