DIY Harry Potter Wands

To cement my status as the nerdiest nerd who ever lived not only did I, a fully-fledged adult, visit The Wizarding World of Harry Potter but I also made magic wands for my friend and me to carry around the theme park. I found a few online tutorials and used them as a jumping off point but pretty much made it up as I went along.

Casting a spell on the Hogwarts Express

I started with a humble chopstick, which I rolled into the center of a tube of construction paper, rolled to be slightly narrower at one end. The tutorials I found said to fill the tube with oodles of hot glue, which is a fine idea in theory but turned out to be difficult to do in reality. I did my best but even after redoing one of the wands there were still a few empty pockets where the hot glue didn't reach before it hardened. Still, I figure that between the chopstick and all of the paint the wands will hold up just fine for casual use. I'll avoid casting Unforgivable Curses with these wands just to be on the safe side.



I snagged the idea to add glass stones at the end from a tutorial at Kate's Escapades with the added idea to personalize each wand with different images Mod Podged to the underside of each glass stone. I'd done something similar in the past making magnets from this tutorial at Sew Woodsy. I just clipped the images from catalogs, hers a sequined green fabric from Boden and mine a cross from an image of the Queen's crown in some British catalog I receive.



From there it was just a matter of adding paint and some decorative details with more hot glue. There's no right or wrong way to do this so I got creative and did the best I could with my unwieldy glue gun. Because my friend and I have such different personalities I thought I'd make her wand a nice brown "wood" with green and silver accents. My wand, on the other hand, would have to be dark and evil as befits a wizard like myself. I painted hers brown, piped on some hot glue in swirly patterns (lots of great ideas for different patterns here), and painted over those details with silver and green metallic paint. To give it a more textured look I used a sponge brush and lightly painted over the entire thing with a mixture of dark gray paint and water. Mine was done the same way with dark gray paint and silver accents.

I'm happy to report that the wands worked perfectly. Here I am getting ready to use mine in a crowded store to compel this woman to move out of my way:



Alright, alright. I felt a little goofy walking around brandishing my magic wand but we wound up getting a few compliments on our homemade wands. We even got one from someone who works there and proclaimed that they looked nicer than the ones they sell in the gift shop for $30. The cutest part was when my friend was sternly warned by the conductor of the Hogwarts Express to be careful when waving her wand about as wand safety is so very important. Too true. I guess we have a lot to learn before we're fully qualified to use these things.

I know it looks like I'm casting a spell on my friend's armpit. That's because I am. If it works, she'll never grow hair there again! Guess I should have been considerate and cast the spell on her other armpit as well. Oops.