Harry Potter Party, Ollivanders Wand Craft Tutorial - Harry Potter Post #2

Good morning everyone,

Our home is in full swing for our Harry. Potter Party! My Piano room is now a bank, candy store and wand shop, it's a mini Diagon Alley! Speaking of Ollivanders Wands... that is exactly what I want to share with you today.

The Birthday Boy's Wand (details Painted designed by him but I did the hot glue, Safety First!)

The Alder Wand (in gold)

 My Daughters Wand - (she painted it like the kids will paint their own at the party)

I think any one of these wands would be perfect to conjure up a Patronus or a Stupefy spell. 

I researched several wands and how to create some great looking ones on Pinterest. I settled on two styles to choose from. One was so inexpensive. It took rolling a piece of paper really tight and filling it with hot glue, yup just a piece of printer paper. Though it was cheep, the second option is what I went with I found HERE. It was cheep too and only cost a few cents more per wand. I went with the option I will explain below because it saved me so much time not to have to make each wand base completely from scratch. I also felt these would be more sturdier then the previous base I explained. The only thing I didn't like is that I could shape the ones previously mentioned before into how thin or thick I wanted. So here goes the tutorial.

Step 1 - Choose your dowel rods - I found this pack of 8 pre-cut at walmart for $0.97 a pack! Excellent... no cutting even!  If I cut them myself I could have gotten 9 for around the same price... but I am all about time. Not only am I getting ready for the biggest birthday party I have ever thrown but my sister's wedding is also two weeks after the party. You better believe I have bunches of projects to do for it too.

 Step 2 - Using a hot glue gun (I prefer hi-temp for maximum sticking power on wood... but you must be careful! Use low-temp if you feel more comfortable) create designs for a handle and other parts of the wand. We created 32 (and 24 more later) and not a single one is alike!

Step 3 - Paint with normal acrylic craft paint - (we just pre-painted the base coats for the party. The kids will choose a wand and detail paint it and add gems if they wish.)

We have about 6-8  base colors to paint with. This gives the kids some choices.

I really love the antique golds but I am happiest with these... All the wands painted black have snake designs from the glue. Possible "Slytherin" wands I hope, but ultimately the kids choose, or does the wand choose them?

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Leave me a comment below if you liked this post or if it inspired you to make some of your own. I would love to here from you. Thanks!

Please leave a comment below if you enjoyed this project! Thank your for reading my ramblings.

Leave a comment below about what you liked or are looking forward to see in the video... I will try to answer your questions in the video or show you what you wanted to see.

PS - For more posts about this party please see the links below:

Eats and Treats:
The Three Broomsticks - Butterbeer, Polly Juice Punch and more
Honeydukes Candy Display - 24 different candies
Owlery Cupcake Tower 
The Golden Snitch Cake  

Fun and Fancy:
Prisoner of Askaban Wanted Poster Photo Booth
DIY Olivander's Wands DIY

Party Decor and More:

Gringotts Display

Potions Cabinet Details DIY
Video of Helmar DIY projects for Harry Potter Party

Invitations and Printables:
Owl Post - Hogwarts Acceptance Letter Invitations mailed Owl Post 
Publications - DAILY PROPHET and the QUIBBER props 

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Harry Potter Invitations delivered Owl Post - Harry Potter Party Post #1

Hello everyone,

I am very excited today to begin to share with you my son's tenth birthday party projects.  He has just completed all the Harry Potter books and decided he wanted a Hagwarts party. So... we started with the invites. I got this balloon owl post idea from Pinterest ... the original blog post is HERE.

Each invite was sealed with a "H" stamp and red wax. The Hogwarts logo printed on the back and addressed to them on the front "in the cupboard under the stairs" The owl post stamp image came from this blog post HERE.

Each envelope contains one ticket to the Hogwarts Express (customized to our home town and party location, in Photoshop) and an acceptance letter from Hogwarts signed by Professor M. McGonagall (I later found her actual signature image on this page HERE). This letter has a secret message hidden in it in Parseltongue (that is the font style... find free Harry Potter fonts HERE) the message reads "Happy tenth birthday Tristan, please join us". When the card is folded to fit into the envelope the Hogwarts logo is on the front.

 

It reads:

Dear Mr. Lauer,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Due to the late notice of your attendance this year we will provide the necessary items you usually would be required to obtain prior to your arrival. Please prepare your wardrobe with a white shirt and either gray or black pants or skirt if you have them on hand.

Term begins May 5th. The sorting ceremony will begin at 1:00 sharp. Classes and Quidditch will finish at 4:30. We await your owl (rsvp) by no later than April 3o. Your ticket for the Hogwarts Express is included in this envelope. The Hogwarts Train will depart from (insert address here) Enjoy your journey.

Yours sincerely,

  


Deputy Headmistress

Find the secret message in this letter to decode the reason
You are being summoned…

 Here is a photo with it all together.

 

 The next step was to order up some balloons from the local party store, Party Land!I found that with the 40 invites we were handing out it was only $3 more expensive to have someone else professionally blow up these balloons instead of getting my own mini tank and taking up my time to to this task. So we ordered them in three colors with orange ribbons (to resemble their feet). Once we got them home I took sharpies and drew the owl faces and bodies on them. My hubby helped by coloring in the eyes and adding color to the beaks.

We decided to have two deliveries. Half the kids receiving invites were close friends to Tristan and we knew where they lived. So we tied the long strings (so the owls can easily be seen from the peep hole or when they open the door) from the owl balloons to the envelops... it was just enough to weight them down but we had to be careful because it was a bit breezy that day and the envelopes were not heavy enough to hold them down very well.

Here is my son "ding dong ditching" the owls to the front doors... They were so much fun to deliver this way. Sitting in the car with the windows down I was able to see and hear a lot of the reactions to our Owl Post deliveries.

 The next day the rest of the balloons were ready to be delivered to his class. I tied these ones much shorter to avoid as much tangling as possible of the strings. The balloons held up beautifully (probably because I had them professionally done).  This is a photo of the shorter strings and the three colors we created them in.

 We tried to make the owls different too... we had some Crazy Eyed "Weasley" type owls... this one was my son's favorite.

Her is the class photo of all the kids. Remember 1/2 of them got their invitations delivered at home the night before.

My Son is the crazy looking one so excited in the bottom right corner... with his arms spread out wide. Everyone enjoyed the invitations. I hope you do too!

Thanks for taking the time to read my post.

Leave a comment below about what you liked. Thank you!

PS - For more posts about this party please see the links below:

Eats and Treats:
The Three Broomsticks - Butterbeer, Polly Juice Punch and more
Honeydukes Candy Display - 24 different candies
Owlery Cupcake Tower 
The Golden Snitch Cake  

Fun and Fancy:
Prisoner of Askaban Wanted Poster Photo Booth
DIY Olivander's Wands DIY

Party Decor and More:

Gringotts Display

Potions Cabinet Details DIY
Video of Helmar DIY projects for Harry Potter Party

Invitations and Printables:
Owl Post - Hogwarts Acceptance Letter Invitations mailed Owl Post 
Publications - DAILY PROPHET and the QUIBBER props

More Birthday Party Invitations I have created:

Boy Birthday Invitations:
- Minecraft Birtyday Party Invitations
- Lego Bionicle Mask of Light

- Lego Starwars Light Sabers

- Iron Man Mask Brithday Party  Invites

Girl's Birthday Invitations:

- Fashion-ista Pink and Black Designer Purse

- Angelina Ballerina Birthday Party Invitations


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Helmar Design Team Announcement

Hello everyone,

Today, it was announced on the Helmar blog... wait for it... the new Helmar Design Team is...

Jamie Cripps
Jennifer Evans
Martha Richardson
Julie Tucker-Wolek
Cheryl Boglioli
Grace Lauer  <------------ THAT IS ME!!!
Susan Weckesser
Carisa Zglobicki
Cindy Royal
JJ Sobey
Vicky Alberto
Melanie Forbes
Rae Cooper
Michelle Wallace
Amy Lynne Lassiter
Liz Chidester
Jen Erickson
Beck Beattie
Sandie Edwards
Lydell Quin- Our Helmar Challenge and Sketch Artist
Erin Morehouse - Our May Guest Designer
Lisa Wilkinson - Our June Guest Designer
Katie Nolan-Denhan - Our July Guest Designer
Kate Vickers -Our August Guest Designer
Cheryl Walker - Our September Guest Designer
Erika Taylor- Design Team Coordinator
Also Jessica Morales will be doing some amazing videos for us on a regular basis and we wanted to give her a shout out too.

The New Helmar Design Team consists of 19 full time designers, 5 guest artists, and 1 sketch artist. I'm so honored and humbled to be a part of this wonderful team for a third term. I am looking forward to tons of inspiration too. Check out these blogs and give them some love.



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How to win a Huge Helmar Prize Pack...

Hello everyone,
Want to win a huge Helmar Prize pack? Check out how at the Canadian Scrapbooker blog. Linked HERE.

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