Harry Potter Wands. If you’ve spent any time on Pinterest then you’ve probably seen the basic theory in how to make these. Those tutorials will be way more comprehensive than mine ever could be (partially because I didn’t bother to photograph my process).
Materials:
- Chop sticks (I bought mine in bulk from Amazon)
- Hot glue sticks – lots of them
- Paint – any colors you’d like
So I made one mistake when I was buying my chopsticks. I bought the square edges ones, which resulted in a lot more work on my end. I have to cover the sticks entirely in hot glue in order to give them a more rounded look. I think they came out nice in the end, and I’m happy with them, but I’d be curious to see how they could have looked without that extra step.
Maybe sometime I’ll pick up a set or two of the rounded ones just to try it out. Anyway, I hope you learn from my mistake so you can save yourself the time and trouble.
Because I had to coat the sticks entirely, it took me about three rounds per wand. The reason for that is because I could only glue so much of the wand at once. Additionally it was difficult to get the hot glue as thick as I wanted in some areas – it really want to spread around every time I rotated the chopsticks. So I ended up going with a slower building process.
That meant there was a lot of wasted time letting each layer dry. On the bright side it also meant I could work on more than one wand at once. That’s sort of how I ended up with so many – I wasn’t keeping track of how many I was making, because I was bouncing between so many of them at once. Still, they ended up making a nice set, so I guess it all worked out?
I went with all natural colors, shades of brown and the like, but with metallic accenting. I wouldn’t mind making a brighter set sometime. Maybe experiment with some purples or teals, and maybe even a gemstone or two. Why not?
I’m going to pass this on to a friend of mine. She would love this for her family!
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They’re fun to make!
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How long did it take you to make these? There are so many tutorials online, do you have an easy one that you recommend for those of us who are worried about burning ourselves with the hot glue gun?
These look fantastic. I can tell some people are going to squeal with delight, grab one, and immediately start casting spells. “Maybe experiment with some purples or teals, and maybe even a gemstone or two.” OMG, yes! Don’t want to go overboard with sparkly things but a gem or two would make a wand look extra-magical.
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I made them all in a batch, so to speak. So about four hours for the lot? A lot of it was waiting for the glue to cool enough to add another layer.
I didn’t find a tutorial mentioning advice on not burning yourself, sadly. I can say that my fingers did get a little toasty at times. My advice would be to keep an eye on the glue as its cooling, I’m not sure if it was the brand I was using, or if I put it on too thickly, but it would pool in I didn’t prop them carefully, and rotate them every now and then.
My other tip would be to get the right chopsticks. I was dumb and ordered the more square shaped ones, so they took more glue to fix up. Though that did give me the opportunity to really shape the wands the way I wanted…so it kind of worked out.
Thanks! I’m glad you liked them. And your comment reminded me that I do want to try another batch sometime. And yeah, just a little bit of shiny to make them distinct. Nothing crazy!
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