Call Me Ollivander (it's wizards and witches wand workshop over here

This morning I was moaning to myself, "oh I have nothing to post and I don't have time to paint anything whatever shall I do oh woe is me." (yes that is my internal voice, more or less) and then I got up to work on one of my projects for my sons up coming Harry Potter party, all the while moaning (woe is me).

And then I gave myself a metaphoric smack in the head.

Duh.

Work In Progress post. I've been developing my HP wands. I started with this tutorial, which is the one I used this Christmas, but my hot glue gun has since bit the dust, and rather than going out and buying a new one, I'm figuring out how to decorate and personalize each one using white glue, scraps and whatever else crafty thing I can come up with. So far I've used yarn soaked in glue (silver wand) tissue paper torn into long strips, saturated with glue and twisted (dark brown and orange wands), kraft paper wrapped around and around with glue plus embellishments (light brown wand and one black wand), and a paper mache pulp and glue. The paper mache pulp was from this tutorial. I kind of like it. I didn't make as much as she did since it's just a trial, but it's fun. It makes sense to use paper mache to me, since these are really paper mache wands.

I have to make, like, twenty of these.

This is what I have so far, with six of them embellished and painted with an undercoat, and two just the blank paper tubes. I figure when I make my next batch, I will do some photo tutorials to go along with it, because although I'm using the basic tutorial from instructables, I've also come up with my own solutions that I haven't seen anywhere. I'm also enjoying scrolling through dadcando and seeing what other people have done with this papermache wand tutorial. In fact, I just got an idea of what I can do with one of those blank paper tubes I have left.

It seems like all in all, it's a great basic blank from which we can use our own creativity to make something that works for us. I kind of like that all my wands are made with different materials, because the real wands in Harry Potter's world are all very different and have unique flavors and feels to them.

Well, that's just a sneak peek at what I've been up to. Now I've got to go off and do less creative projects. Oh who am I kidding, I'm going to embellish another wand.

Just remember, there is so much inspiration out there on the internet these days, but that doesn't mean that you have to follow exactly what they say. Use the ideas out there to inspire your own creativity.