If you haven’t caught on to this very important fact, I am obsessed with Harry Potter. Totally obsessed; the quintessential “Potterhead.” So, naturally, I need to bring Harry Potter into the Christmas part of my life. Last year for Christmas I made this ornament set for myself, my son’s teacher, my niece and my brother, all fellow Potterheads. They are so adorable and eclectic. The set includes: a miniature wand, a felt doe, a glass ornament full of quotes and 3 potion bottles, all tucked into a box that says, “Have a very Harry Christmas.” They were all very happy with their gifts, and I just loved pulling mine out this year!
Wand
Supplies:
- Wooden chopstick
- Hot glue gun and glue
- Dark brown or black spray paint
- Ribbon, or decorative string
- Something with which to measure
Instructions:
- Measure wooden chop stick to between 4 and 4.5 inches.
2. Cut. I used a steak knife to cut mine. Mostly I cut it a bit on each edge then I just snapped it with my hands. It doesn’t matter if there’s a bit of an exposed edge because you’ll cover it with hot glue anyway. We only need the pointy end for this craft.
3. Using your hot glue gun decorate the wand. I like to put a ring around the wand at about an inch and a half from the biggest part to show where the handle ends. I did a spiral all the way from that line to the base of the handle. For the tip of the wand I just scraped the tip of my glue gun up and down the tip of the wand, squeezing out just a bit of glue, to make it look rough. I wanted it to have a fresh wood sort of look.
4. Time to spray paint! I used dark brown. Follow the instructions on your spray paint can and paint your wand. It may take a couple coats to get into all the nooks and crannies.
5. Once you’ve painted both sides and let it dry, bring your wand back to your glue gun. Cut a length of ribbon or decorative string to use to hang it from the tree. Put a dab of glue on the end of the handle and press the ribbon into it. You may have to do this once for each end of the ribbon.
- Put your Harry Potter Wand Ornament on your tree!
Doe
Supplies:
- White felt
- Hot glue gun and glue
- Scissors
- Decorative ribbon or string
- Artist’s touch or a printer, scissors and marker
Instructions:
- Find a picture of a doe online (I love to use openclipart.org.). Adjust it so it’s about 3 inches wide.
2. Print it and cut it out.
3. Trace the doe onto white felt with a marker and cut it out, being sure to cut on the inside of the line so you can’t see it at the end.
4. Glue the segment of ribbon to it in a loop and hang it on your Christmas Tree.
5. Hang your Harry Potter Doe Ornament from the tree!
Glass Ball of Quotes
Supplies:
- Computer/Paper/Printer
- A copy of the Harry Potter books, your memory, or the internet
- Scissors
- One glass or plastic Christmas ball ornament with a removable top
Instructions:
- Choose your favourite Harry Potter quotes (or find some online) and print them in a delightfully whimsical, largish font. I also put my fonts in bold. Each one should be one line long (I turned my paper from Portrait to Landscape so each quote could be longer)
2. Cut each one out. (I used my paper cutter so the lines would be straight. If you don’t have a paper cutter you could use a ruler, or just be really careful so that it looks straight and clean- no jagged edges.) Then trim the ends so the quote fills the paper.
3. Using the edge of your scissors, draw each piece of paper across the blade to curl it. (I forgot to take a picture of this step, so I kind of recreated it above. The writing should be on the top (visible) side of the paper.)
I grab that bit of paper where my thumb is with my other hand and, while keeping pressure with the left thumb, I pull the paper across the scissor blade. If it curls to much gently pull both ends to loosen it. If it doesn’t curl enough just run it across the blade again.
4. Very carefully slip the pieces of paper into the ornament, trying to keep them fanned out. You can give it a bit of a shake to make more room. They will settle a bit as it rests, so don’t throw out any spares right away because you may find that you want them.
5. Put on the top and add the ribbon.
6. Hang Harry Potter Quote Ornament from your Christmas Tree!
Potion Bottles
Supplies:
- Small vials with lids (mine are glass bottles with cork lids)
- Different colours of glitter
- White glue
- Ribbon or decorative string
- Q-Tips
- Paper (I prefer a cream colour to make it look aged. If you only have white you can die it a parchment colour by soaking it in tea, then letting it dry. If you think this is overkill just use the white!)
- Black Marker
- Mod Podge (this is optional. I used it to put my labels on, but white glue should work just fine.
Instructions:
- Using the Q-Tip wipe the white glue on the bottom, and the bottom of the walls of the vial.
2. Tip in a bit of glitter and spin the bottle around so all the glue is covered with the glitter. The glitter is supposed to be the potion, so it will look more if the bottle isn’t “full;” and the line of the potion in the bottle is fairly even. If you want to you can mix two colours. To do this put in one colour and spin it around, then add another and spin it around. This way will give you larger chunks of each colour.
3. Wrap the ribbon around the neck of the vial in order to hang it on the tree).
4. Now it’s time to write the label. I recommend that you write first and cut out after. You can label the bottle any of the potions from Harry Potter. I made Amortentia, Felix Felicis and Polyjuice Potion. Draw a border around the label. Put some glue (or Mod Podge) on the back and stick it to your vial. Add the cork (you may want to wait until the glue dries before you put the cork back on).
The Box
For my box I just used a plain old cardboard thing and wrote “Have a very HARRY Christmas” on it in red permanent marker. Then I laid the ornaments in tissue paper so that when the box was opened they were all delightfully displayed. Then I wrapped the box so they didn’t know it was Harry Potter until they opened the paper. You could do a lot more than this, though. You could get a fancy box (a shoe box would work nicely too) that they can store the ornaments in, and write “Have a very HARRY Christmas” in adhesive vinyl or fancy script ( or iron-on vinyl or fabric markers for a bag.), or print, cut and paste- or vinyl pictures from Harry Potter like the snitch, or the Deathly Hallows, or Hedwig, etc. I’d love to see some more ideas for the box in the comments!
What do you think? They make me so happy, and my son’s teacher loved them too. They are such a great gift because they are inexpensive
to make (and so much fun!), they are personal and they take minimal crafting skill. Even a novice can come away with an awesome looking Harry Potter gift set. This is my last post before Christmas, so I hope you:
Have a Very Harry Christmas!
But First We Craft 