Monday, October 15, 2012

Ollivander's Apprentice- Wand Tutorial


The one on the far right looks like it's floating. Wingardium levosa... I'm a nerd

I saw this wand tutorial on Pinterest and decided to make some for the girls. I couldn't get that method to completely work, so I'll show you what I did instead.
It was the perfect time to make a wand because Piglet wants to dress up as a Gryffindor in her school parade. We don't really celebrate Halloween but the girls dress up year round- even on Halloween, so I thought these would be fun to have. When we were in Florida the church had a "Fall-ing for Jesus" harvest festival, I miss those!
These wands were easy and cheap to make. The gold paint didn't look that... well gold in our house, once I took the wands outside they were pretty blingy. But my girls will like that. There's also another tutorial on Pinterest that makes wands with a hallow core, how cool would it be to put a red feather (phoenix), human (Veela), or horse hair (unicorn) in the middle while making your wands? Yes, I am a geek.
I tried to make an Elder wand and Luna's wand. I couldn't get the petals to form for Luna's wand, so I formed a heart on the end of Pixie's wand instead.
These are wand glamour shots :).
Heart.



Elder want inspired, third from the left.


I ended up making four of these because chopsticks come in pairs. Two of them are regular wood chopsticks, the other two are take out chopsticks- the disposable ones. So, let's get started. ACCIO hot glue gun! (Too much? Sorry. Not really.)


Wand Tutorial

Chopsticks
Hot glue gun
Hot glue sticks
Acrylic craft paint (this was on sale for 87 cents a bottle!)
Krylon matte finishing spray- it's like a protective spray
Paint brushes, paint sponge
Rag

*Paint note- I used 2 shades of brown, a bottle of black, a bottle of Staining Antiquing Medium- same bottle as the craft paints, and gold.

1. Heat the glue gun. Take one chopstick at a time and put glue around the bottom of the handle, you may have to do several "coats", the glue is (obviously) hot so be careful. Once it starts turning a little cloudy you can handle it. I also drizzled glue around the point and tip of the chopsticks also. Let the glue dry.
2. Give the chopsticks a once over to remove any strings of glue. This is important, because once you start painting those little stray pieces will look funny. So clip any loose little strings.
3. Brush on your first layer of paint, whatever brown or color you've chosen for the wand. Get paint into all the crevices. I had to do a few layers to get good coverage. Let the paint dry in between coats.
4. Take the black point and mix it 1:1 with the Antiquing medium. Brush or sponge it on the dry wands. Gently wipe off so that some of the black stays on and gives you a "worn" look. Do half the wand at a time so it doesn't dry on you. I wore disposable gloves, it helped spread this paint all over too. Let these dry.
Antiqued wands

5. Add detailing with gold, silver, other colors of paint. I went a little overboard with the gold. I also mixed the gold with the Antiquing Medium and wiped it on the Elder wand. Let these dry.
6. Check the detail, touch up paint if needed. I did another coat of antiquing in some areas to tone down the gold. Let these, you know, dry.
7. Spray the wands with the protective spray. Let these, just kidding, but really. Let them dry.
8. Get ready for a duel...
EXPELLIARUMS!


*I did not end up using beads like the original tutorial. It was to much of a pain, and I'm glad I didn't because the one wand that had the beads (OK, in my case small seeds), was a pain to paint. See the hot mess below. I peeled paint and seeds off the second wand. 
I also didn't want to "handle" too much hot glue.
Parties GPAC Links up at found HERE.
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17 comments:

  1. WOW!! This is fabulous!! I'm going to have to show this to Gabrielle! She's going to want one!

    Thanks so much for sharing this at The DIY Dreamer... From Dream To Reality!

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  2. This is so cool! When I first saw the list of materials I thought "this makes a wand?!" How simple and genius!

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  3. These are brilliant! I wish I would have known how to make these a few years ago when my nephew dressed up as Harry!

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    1. Melinda they are great toys. maybe stocking stuffers?

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  4. I'm a HUGE Harry Potter fan! Love these wands! Thanks for linking up with me for Friday Favorites. I'm featuring you this week. Come by and grab my featured button if you'd like one.

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  5. Thanks for the great idea. You can see how we made your great idea. Please come to visit us here - http://ivaalex.blogspot.cz/2012/10/blog-post_31.html Our little book of magic here http://ivaalex.blogspot.cz/2012/10/blog-post_7754.html. Greetings from me and the Czech Republic. Again, thank you.

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  6. These are fabulous! I'm on the lookout for gift/craft ideas to do with my oldest grand-daughter and this is perfect! *pinned*

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  7. Hi! These are just too cool! We are doing a fund raiser for the local college called Geekfest and I am part of the Harry Potter committee. We are looking for crafts to do with the kids, and this would great. Only thing is we only have an hour session for crafts. Do you think the hot glue would cool and the paint dry in that time frame. Thanks!

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    1. I think you should pre make the wands with the glue and everyone can just then paint their own!

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  8. The overall look is a pretty two toned one that can be switched around to create different looks depending on what you've got in mind for your day/evening. Glamour Wand

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