Warning! This post may be considered PG13 for language!
Okay, so I'm not big on swearing. I don't do it very often and I don't really care to hear it. But some things will drive me to say some colorful words and these Harry Potter wands were one of those things.
When I saw these on Pinterest, I knew I had to try them for my major Harry Potter fan children. We're doing a lot of homemade this Christmas and I thought this would be a perfect gift for all 4 of my kids. So tonight, while the hubby was putting the little ones to bed, I got out my hot glue gun and went to work.
Ooooh, boy. It didn't begin well. I couldn't get the glue to go much farther than an inch down the wand no matter what I did. In reading the comments on the original blog post, someone said they had a similar problem and solved it by rolling a pencil in the wand. I tried that. No go. After starting on my third attempt, and going on an hour of working on these, I was getting frustrated, and yes, some naughty words were sneaking out. I really didn't want to give up, though, as I knew my kids would just love the finished product. So out of desperation, I unrolled all of the third wand, up to where it was filled (about 1 inch of the bottom) and got the glue gun close to the dried glue and starting squeezing the heck out of that gun while whisper yelling "Fill dammit! Fill!" Huh! It was seeming to work!
That was the key, getting that first inch filled, letting it cool and harden, and then unrolling and filling and rolling as I went. I was happy I figured out a solution, but it still wasn't smooth sailing. For one, that glue it hot!! Even through a layer or two of paper, it can burn you. Trust me, I know. (and one or two small bad words may have escaped every time I touched that scalding paper) Two, anyone who's worked with hot glue knows of those hot glue strings you get. Mid-way through the first wand, I felt like I was covered in hundreds of spider webs-blech (of course, I wouldn't possibly think of uttering any more no-no's while trying to shake millions of little glue strands off of my hands, arms, clothes...). It also got a bit tedious filling, waiting for it to cool a bit, filling, waiting, filling, waiting, filling, waiting, and so on and and on. After I got that first one filled, the others went more quickly. That could also be because I had my husband helping to hold at that point so I'd fill, he'd hold while it cooled while I started filling a second one, we'd trade and we pretty much had a good system going on. He was also very helpful in suggesting I "stop burning myself" each time a damn or sh*t escaped my mouth.Each wand took 10-13 mini glue sticks to fill and about 20-25 minutes. After my first couple of failed attempts, I also realized I was rolling the wands too loose. They should be fairly tight, with the narrow end about the size of a pencil, getting a bit wider at the other end.
That greeny yellow thing is an unsharpened pencil if you couldn't tell.
Here's how a finished, filled wand looks before painting;
The painting and making the designs when fairly quickly and I just did that as the directions on the original blog say.
I started this project around 9:00pm and, at 2:00am, I was finally finished! Well, not quite. I still need to Modge Podge them today but come on, it was 2am, I was calling it a night.
I have a love/hate relationship with this project. It was a major pain in the hiney to fill these babies, I burned more than one of my fingers, I got sick and high (in a bad way) from smelling all of those darn heated glue sticks, and it kept me up half the night. That being said, the final result is so stinking COOL! I think my kids are going to flip over these! I went from cursing them all to H-E-double-hockey-sticks in the beginning of the night, to practically kissing them and whispering sweet nothings to them in the wee hours of the morning.
So I'd say give the project a try, as long as you go into it prepared. You could do so many cool things, fairy wands with pearlescent pastel paint would be so pretty! They're very sturdy, and surprisingly heavy, once finished so they should hold up to quite a lot of play.
Now excuse me while I go ice my finger pads and take a nap.
**Edit to add: I think I may have been a little too complainy in my post. While these were a pain in the butt to fill, the end result was totally worth it! The decorating was pretty fun too so if you're considering trying this one out go for it! Just have a stiff drink on hand to help get through the first part. ; )
