DIY Wizard Wands with Gems

 

I recently made a lot of wizard wands for a birthday party and was pretty happy with how they turned out.  I used the same basic plan as my previous wand: https://chuck-does-art.blogspot.com/2018/10/diy-wizard-wands.html but this time added the extra flare of a rhinestone at the tip and coated the 'vines' with gold to make them extra sparkly.  

Materials:

-12 inch wooden dowels, 3/8 inch diameter

-Rhinestones (slightly smaller than 3/8 inch across)

-Lock-Tite adhesive

-Hot glue gun and lots of hot glue

-Acrylic paint: Black, Dark Chocolate (or other dark brown), Honey Brown (or other light brown), Gold

-Warm semi-gloss polyurethane 

Step one: I used the lock-tite adhesive to glue the rhinestones to the end of the dowels. 

Step two: I add hot glue: There are a couple different 'parts' that I add to the wand

1) Two full circles near the middle of the dowel to be the handle where you hold it with your fingers

2) A large blot of glue on the butt of the dowel (opposite the rhinestone) to help balance it, with a spiral of glue leading from there to the finger handle.  The farther the finger handle is from the center, the more glue you will need to balance it.

3) A thin circle of glue over the edge of the rhinestone with a little spiral off of it to make sure the rhinestone can't pop off. 

4) Test the weight by holding the wand at the finger handle; if it leans to one side or the other add more hot glue to the other side until it balances.

Step three: Paint

1) Paint the entire thing black

2) Heavy dry brush dark chocolate (dark brown)

3) Light dry brush honey brown (light brown)

4) Paint gold over all the hot glue areas; do this lightly so that some of the dark color below shows thru, which will give it an aged appearance. 

Step Four: Once the paint fully dries, spray with polyurethane to seal the paint.  If you don't use the polyurethane the paint comes off the hot glue very easily. I used a semi-gloss and liked the final effect.  Make sure to do this outside!

Happy Spell Casting!

DIY Wizard Wands

For Halloween this year we are going as wizards from the Harry Potter universe, so of course we needed to create some wands! There are many descriptions online of using hot glue, dowels, and acrylic paint to make your own wands, and that's exactly what we did too.  I was surprised at how well it worked, and how nicely the glue took paint.  The glue works particularly well for organic shapes and patterns.



Supplies:
12 inch wooden dowels (from a craft store)
Sandpaper
Hot glue gun and many extra sticks of glue
Cheap acrylic kids paint
Glossy polyurethane

Steps:

The first step for me was sanding down one side of the dowel which would be the 'tip' of the wand.

Next I added the hot glue.  I first made a sort of 'handle' for each wand where the thumb and forefinger will rest.  

Next I embellished the rest of the grip.

Last I added a 'butt' to the wand to increase the overall length of the grip. This is essentially just a giant glob of hot glue.  I added extra glue over the glob to make it more interesting.  This also served to add extra weight behind the 'handle' and make the handle the balance point of the wand.

I stopped adding glue to the end once the balance was right.

Now with the wands glued, it was time to paint them.

I used a black base coat, then successive layers of brown, from dark to light.  Each coat was thinner than the last, so that the deeper crevices remained darkest.  The final lightest brown I only painted onto the glue embellishment, and did two coats to increase the brightness.

I let the paint dry overnight.  The paint rubs off of the glue easily, so I coated the wands in a glossy polyurethane to seal them.  Overall I was quite happy with how these turned out, and the project overall was pretty simple.  It would also be easy to add further embellishments (tassels, beads, etc) to give them more variety.