DIY Harry Potter Collection - Wands & Broom

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My 3 sisters recently threw a combined birthday party. And the theme they chose was Harry Potter.
As my gift to them I made a bunch of the props and decorations.

So here I will give a , sort of, step-by-step on how I made the various items.
Be warned though, I'm pretty bad at remembering to take photos of my process.

We're nearing the end of this series, just 2 more to go. So the penultimate is ...

WANDS & BROOM

I've grouped these 2 together as they use similar materials and techniques.
We'll start with:

1. BROOM


Close to my brother's house (brother depicted above) there is a massive Pine tree that was recently felled; this is where I got almost all the materials used in these 2 projects.
I started with the handle.

For this I chose a nice long, thick branch that had a gentle curve. The first thing to do is strip it of its bark.
I deliberately chose a branch that was already fairly barkless due sun exposure; to make it easier on myself.

The bark stripping is a long and tedious process, and there are not really any shortcuts. I used a vegetable peeler which I found to work pretty well. It grips under the bark, but mine was not sharp enough to actually cut the wood; however I did have some scratches, which I sanded out after stripping the bark.
You could also use a strong (non-serated) knife for this; or a lot of elbow grease and a sander (I do not advise this, it will take FOREVER).

After stripping the bark, do some light sanding. Your stick should now be smooth and showing the wood grain. The worst part is over.
Next comes varnish.

I wanted the broom to be gleaming, as well as quite a bit darker then the pine; so I choose a woodstain-varnish combo.
I applied with a brush, letting dry for 24 hrs between coats. I did 4 coats.

If I had an electric sander, I would've sanded between coats so that the broom would be really shiny; but I don't so I didn't.
If you want it to be glass-shiny, you'l need to sand and wipe the handle between coats. Then after applying the final coat, let it dry fully (can take up to 3 weeks); then sand with progressively finer sand paper, finishing with extra-fine waterpaper. Then lastly, polish with a polishing compound.
A lot of work, I know. That's why  didn't do it.
But I think my broom turned out alright, even if I do say so myself.

Now we need to tackle the bristles.

I wanted a very natural looking broom. I know tutorials on pintrest have ideas with hot glue and coke bottles or papiermache. But that's not what I wanted.
After a little internet research on how to make a "besom"; I started by selecting my twigs. 

Unfortunately the twigs I picked up were quite brittle and difficult to handle. So after selecting the twigs I wanted to work with, I loosely tied them together and soaked them in water for 2 days. This softened the twigs exponentially.
After the soaking, I could easily tie them together into a bristle shape.

I held the whole bundle of twigs clamped tight between my thighs (a 2nd pair of hands can work as well); and tied a piece of twine tightly about 7cm from where most of the twigs ended; then I trimmed the extra long ones so the top of the bristles formed a more-or-less straight line.

After this, I pushed the bottom of the handle right between the tops of the twigs. If you tied the twine tight enough, It should hold the broom quite firmly; If not, unwrap your bundle and start again.
Once I had a solid, secure fit; I removed the broom handle and lightly sprayed the bristles with a copper spray paint so that they had a more pinkish hue and a lovely shine.
Then I painted a fairly generous coat of woodglue on the lower part of the handle; and pushed it back into the bundle.
Let dry for 24hrs.

Then I added a thin strip of copper-ish colored leather over the twine and secured with paper split-pins to make it look like rivets.

And the broom is ... done.

2. WANDS 


I used twigs from the same tree to make the wands.

The process is similar to the broom handle in that the twigs must first be scraped and sanded.

One of the twigs I chose was particularly bent, but was already barkless. So I straightened the twig out a bit.
I did this by again soaking the twig; this time for 2 days as I wanted it to be really malleable.
Then I tied the twig to a straight broom handle and let dry for 3 days.
The straightened wand is the lower wand in the picture below.
You'll see it is mostly straight; if you wanted it straighter then that, I suggest you soak and let dry for an additional 2 days, at least.

Next the handles.

Again, there are a lot of tutorials on Pinterest and Youtube that say you can make these with hot glue; and sure you could. But I didn't want to.
I find hot glue notoriously difficult to control (see my sorting hat post for the full rant); so I chose to do them out of air-dry clay.

The clay didn't stick very well to the twigs, so I soaked the pieces I wanted to cover with the clay in water for a few hours. This helped in keeping the clay to the stick, but it will still come loose if you are not careful.

I wanted to specifically experiment with spirals; so I rolled thin snakes out of the clay, cut them in half length wise, and wrapped the snake slowly around the wand with the flat side on the wood.

I repeated this 7 or 8 times until the whole wand handle was covered. The last snake had to be significantly thinner then the others.

I did 2 wands with 2 different types of spirals, then made a 3rd one on which I wanted to have a more filigreed effect.

Let the handles dry for at least 24hrs. You'll know they are dry when they no longer feel cool to the touch and produce a sharp, hard sound when tapped with a finger nail.

Now, we paint.

I covered the wooden parts of the wands as best I could with some clinfilm and masking tape; then did the base coats. Copper for the first spiraled wand, green for the 2nd and silver for the filigreed.

The key to making any paint job look good is shading and highlighting.

I black-washed using black water-color paint; I find this the easiest as it takes quite a while to dry so you can gradually build up your layers.

Then, I used acrylic paint to dry-brush on the highlights. I used yellow for the green wand; light pink for the copper; and white for the silver.

I colored the "shafts" of the wands by painting them with heavily watered-down acrylic paint in complimentary colors to the handles. The watered down paint is so they would pick up the color, but the woodgrain would still show through. I suppose you could also use watercolors for this, but you'll have to do several coats to get the pigment to really stick out. Remember that wood is absorbent and will "suck up" your watercolors.

Then I sealed them all using a clear varnish spraypaint and let dry for 24hrs.

I also made a little stand for them by using a spare piece of wood.
I painted it using light yellow and terracotta colors, and smashed in 6 nails in 3 rows to support the wands.

And they're done! 2 projects, 1 tree! My favorite by far is the green, vine-y wand.


Thanks so much for reading. Please share to your facebook or twitter feeds if you think others may enjoy reading my blog.

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