Merry Christmas, everybody! I spent the last few days finishing up our Harry Potter tree, so even though you've seen most of it before, here it is officially ready for viewing: As soon as we got home from our trip last week I had John take everything off the tree (thanks, Sweetie!) so I could add the garland in and rearrange everything to fit. I hoped to make the garland look like a magical swirl, ala Cinderella's transformation scene, so I knew it had to be a little wild and very glittery. In the end I made the garland myself, using about 20 of these floral sprigs, wired together: (Waiting 'til the last minute has its advantages; they were 70% off at JoAnn's!) And in related news, I think I have gold glitter permanently embedded in my skin now. o.0 My winged keys looked fantastic off the tree, but are pretty "meh" on it. The detail is lost in the lights and shadows, but those are translucent dragonfly wings we printed on vellum paper: I attached them to real antique keys using a tiny glue dot, which worked great: Then I hung them with a little dark thread. Seriously, though, look how cool these wings are: I'm so bummed they don't show up on the tree! Ah well. Still fun to make. This Marauder's Map is a tough project to fold (took me two tries), but oh-so-cool. Hit that link for the template & tutorial. I think this is the first project I've seen John go total fanboy on, and I love that we got to make something HE was excited about. (John likes a lot of things, but he LOVES Harry Potter. He's listened to the Jim Dale audio books dozens of times each, and will passionately explain all the ways the later movies messed up to anyone who dares broach the subject. ;)) John came up with a lot of the ornaments on his own, like Luna's glasses, the Map, and all the parchment scrolls with Hogwarts' seals - but my favorite of his ideas is the floating quill pens: The scrolls are printed with potion ingredients from the books, and the quills - just craft feathers with a bit of metal tape on the tip - are attached with a hidden wire inside the feather shaft: The wire extends from the feather tip, pierces the paper, and attaches behind the parchment to a small square of cardboard for stability. I had to prop the paper up just so in the branches to keep the quills upright, but once set, they look downright magical. Here they are off the tree: Next year I'd like to have John re-make the scrolls so the quill is mid-word, so it really looks like they're writing mid-air. Let's see, what else? Ah, potion bottles! With a bonus Lily & Tonks. These are $1 glass bottles (except the Felix Felicis, which is an old syrup bottle :D) from JoAnn's. I added burned parchment labels, wire neck hangers, and then carefully poured a little colored glitter in each. The glitter sticks easily to the inside of the glass, so you just have to roll it around to make it look like the bottles are filled most of the way. Plus, spaaaaarkly. The glittery Stag patronus is a Dollar Tree find. I thought the swirly horns & pierced sides looked sufficiently "smokey." And pretty frog, because pretty frog: He's not far from our Chocolate Frog candy box: I even added a tiny cauldron, inspired by Brook's Potter tree from a few days ago: Next year I'll add lights inside 'em. And one final action shot, so you can behold the twinkly glory: Well, everyone, thanks for taking this magical crafty journey with me! I hope you had as much fun as I did - if that's even possible. ;) And one final roundup of all my Potter Tree projects: - DIY Golden Snitches - Floating Candles - Cauldron Base - Mini Quidditch Brooms - In-Tree Hogwarts Express ***** Or come see ALL of my craft projects on one page, right here!