The Wand Chooses the Wizard

When my family went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter last summer, my eldest son was lucky enough to be selected by Mr. Ollivander to be part of a wand choosing.  He was thrilled and so was I! The show was delightful (we went first thing one morning and there were not many other park guests inside the tiny shop in Hogsmeade.)  Part of the magic was seeing my son interact with Ollivander and watch his face as the choosing unfolded in the shop.  Needless to say, we shelled out the money for the interactive wand and one "basic" Harry Potter wand for my littlest.  It was worth every penny to watch the two boys cast spells throughout both HP parks.

So when the Harry Potter Party planning began, wands were an important part of the process.  I am an avid Pinterest user and started looking at and pinning tutorials.  Most of the simplest ones I saw used chopsticks.  Cheap, great size for the elementary school crowd, and I have Amazon Prime.  I ordered this set of 10 pairs (20 was a perfect number for me to decorate since we'd be hosting 15 wizards and witches in our home the day of the event) and waited the two days for UPS to arrive with my box.

The chopsticks arrived and I started crafting.  I gathered my supplies- some wand images from the internet for inspiration (bless you, Google), my glue gun, a container of wooden macrame' beads from the 70's (my mother in law gives me her old crafting goodies and I get to incorporate them in my projects), a cordless drill, some corks, a ball of  twine, some leftover jewelry making bits, and pretty much anything else I thought would make for a magical wand.

Wand picture from Reddit.  I am fairly creative, but still look at others' work for inspiration.  

I used the drill to enlarge the holes in the wooden beads so they'd slide down the length of the chopstick and fit snugly.  I only broke a couple of beads during the process.  If you decide to drill beads, go slowly and be careful.  I sliced one of my fingers with the drill bit when the bead and drill decided to get a little out of hand.  I decided to keep the sawdust that I generated while drilling.  I ended up rolling some hot glued parts of the wands in the dust to create an unusual, organic texture.

I glued the beads in place along the length of the chopstick and would add extra drips, lines of glue, and extra swirls to make each wand unique.  Having many beads drilled ahead of time made arranging them easier.  I could choose one size and if I didn't like it I could just switch it out for another or change the spacing.  I was mindful that the children's hands were smaller than mine, so I scaled the handles accordingly, although a few wands had very long handles and decorations that extended up the shaft towards the tip.  I used a heavy glass to hold the wands upright as they cooled.  I did not want to set them down horizontally when they were still warm because I wanted to make sure the shapes I created were not distorted.

Embellished and ready to prime

These are most of the 20 wands I crafted.  I really liked the way hot glue could be used to create ridges, drips, and serpentine shapes that wrapped the wand. (bottom grouping, far left)
I encrusted one entire handle in purple glass beads.  (top grouping, second from bottom)
Twine wrapped between two beads served as a handle for the wand that chose my son. (bottom grouping, second from right)
A tiny acorn from my yard created a finial at the end of the handle of one delicate looking wand (top grouping, second from top)



The next step was to prime and paint the parts of the wands that would not be left as unfinished wood.

Primed and drying

A basic flat finish white craft paint served as my primer.  I brushed two coats on the areas I wanted to paint later.  I used a cardboard box out of my recycling stash to create a stand for the wands to sit in as the paint dried.  I used an ice pick to poke holes in the lid of the box and inserted the wands as I finished painting them.  They dried fairly quickly and were ready for their final decorative treatment.

I have quite a collection of craft paints in my garage. Luckily, many of them are wood tones, metallics, and a different shades of black.  I set up a watercolor palette with my chosen colors and started brushing.  I combined colors on some wands, chose to use only one color on others, and some I painted a with natural base color and then added a top coat in a different color.

Palette of wood tone paints

The wands with their final paint colors (and a few still in the primer stage)

I attached small printable tags to each wand with the wood, core, and length.  I got the tags from this fantastic blog On My Side of the Room.  I printed them on parchment paper, punched them out with a tag-shaped punch and tied them to the handles of the wands.  

This photo is from the On My Side of the Room blog.  I forgot to take pictures of my tags!  

With the wands finished needed to get started on my next crafting project- the Invitations.

Potion Master's Cabinet

So I tend to recycle stuff.  Our city offers curbside recycling.  I do not recycle glass jars.  I remove the labels, wash them and store them away.  Because, you never really know when you're going to need at least 50 glass bottles at one time.  One of the classes that was to take place during the school day at Hogwarts was Potions.  And no Potions classroom would be complete without bottles and bottles and more bottles of weird stuff.

Thanks to Tuesday Morning
for providing me with a laugh

I could have bought trendy, empty apothecary bottles at a big box retailer, but I am all about saving money when possible.  And those things are NOT cheap.  I think you would have to be bat $#@t crazy to pay $24.99 for a single jar of crystallized bat droppings. (Thanks LB for making that connection for me.) And these were not all that big- about 6" tall.  So since I made almost all of mine from stuff I had on hand I think I had already saved at least $1,250.00.  Way under budget at this point. And I hadn't even left my house.

I began by gathering my bottles and setting all of them out in my dining room on the buffet.Then I started Googling.  "Jar labels"  no, not vintage enough.  "Apothecary labels"  better.  Hmmm, "Harry Potter Potions Labels"  getting closer.  So many searches, so many files I chose to save to my hard drive.

Click the links below to be taken to some of the wonderful images I found.

Apothecary Labels p1

Apothecary Labels p2

Amazing bottles and labels

Once I finally saved enough labels, I began formatting my pages.  I am a huge fan of Microsoft Publisher so I set up a file to print on 8 1/2 x 11" pages.  I keep a stockpile of labels, so I had full sheet sticker sheets at the ready.  Once I got my files looking exactly the way I wanted, I began printing.  Then I cut the labels out by hand and affixed them to the jars and bottles.  (A little known designer trick to make sure your surfaces are REALLY clean is to wipe them down with rubbing alcohol before you stick anything to the surface.)

Big jars got big labels.  Tall jars got tall labels.  Round jars got circular labels.  Some miniature jars did not get labels at all, but tiny cardstock tags I had leftover from another project.  I simply wrote on the tag and tied a string around the neck of the botte and attached the tag.

After attaching the labels, I filled the jars.  I tried to make the contents of the jar match the label- at least as far as a Muggle could create magical ingredients from what was on hand in her cupboards.  I used cooking oil, balsamic vinegar, cat fur, q-tip cotton swabs, and all sorts of other household supplies. I even used miniature LED fairy lights to make one jar glow.

Once all the jars were filled and corked or lidded, I added a few finishing touches to make the bottles look like different "vendors" produced them.  Some jars were wrapped with brown floral tape to seal the corks.  I added twine or hot glue to others to seal the bottles.  I tried making each container unique.  I realize that no one would ever spend as much time studying these as I was, but it was a personal challenge to make the collection as a whole unique and interesting.

 A skull-shaped bottle held Draught of Living Death
(water tinted with red food coloring).  The Skele-Gro is homemade Kahlua.
 Veritaserum is filled with vegetable oil.

Mermaids' Tears (epsom salt) filled a tiny bottle that sat near the front of the potions cabinet. Fur from our cat brush was carefully tucked inside the jar labeled Werewolf Fur.   I even found a few cicada shells that I collected (my mom had more success than I did, she added nearly 90 shed shells to my jar.)

The shed cicada shells filled an apothecary jar from the Target Dollar Spot (one of the few containers I actually purchased.  It was counted and sealed by the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.  The label used  for this jar is from Avery. Party goers were encouraged to guess the number of shells in the jar.  The winner took home a handmade copy of the Monster Book of Monsters.

Bottles, a lone skull beer stein, bones, and books fill the completed Potion Master's  cabinet

This antique Welsh cupboard usually resides in our Dining Room and is filled with my collection of brown transferware.  For the party, it was emptied and moved into the garage which was draped in countless yards of black fabric to create a Potions classroom.

I ended up with a "few" extra bottles.  So they were placed on a borrowed bookshelf
 in Diagon Alley (formerly known as our Entry Hallway.)

As I made dinner that night, I realized all my balsamic vinegar had been decanted and moved into the Potion Master's cabinet.  I had to go fetch it and use it for a crockpot recipe.  Shhhh.  I never told my kiddos that Squid Ink was my secret ingredient.  Dinner never tasted so good!

To access one set of my curated apothecary labels here. You can dowload and print them and make your own potions bottles.

The next project to tackle- wands.

The Wizarding World or My Son is 8

My littlest on Christmas Day 2015.
 All he asked for was Harry Potter goodies.  And boy, did Santa deliver!

November 2016- my family hosted my son's 8th birthday party.  He loves Harry Potter, so very much. We all do, all four of us. After our very first trip to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando my youngest son made a request for a Harry Potter birthday party.  We spent three fun days immersed in the world or Wizards and Witches (and other theme park goodness) and I was determined to bring J.K. Rowling's brand of magic back home with us.

I planned to invite my son's friends to Hogwarts, in our house.  And have them shop for their school supplies in Daigon Alley, in our house.  And sort them into their Houses, in our house.  And have their wand choose them.  And, and and!  So many magical ideas rattled around in my head.  And I knew I had to get started so I'd have plenty of time to create these activities.  My supportive husband just nodded and smiled.  He knows from past parties that once a theme is set it is full steam ahead. The Hogwarts Express was leaving the station.  We will be making magical memories for 15 small children and that's that.

I started mentally planning three months prior to his party.  In reality I starting making things on August 29th (thank goodness for date/time stamps on digital photos.)  With the party just 67 days away I had to get crafting.  I began with small props, moved into costumes and visual details, and finished with party favors and food.  The party was a delightful success for Wizards, Witches, and Muggles alike.  I posted pictures on Social Media as I created items and so many people expressed support that we decided to host a Hogwarts Open House immediately following the birthday party.  I wanted to share the crafts and preparations with any of you wanting to create a magical day for someone else you love.

Please join me on this craftacular  journey that transformed our suburban family home into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (even if it was for just one beautiful, autumn day.)

Welcome to Platform 9 3/4.  The magic lies just behind the brick well.