Harry Potter Christmas Tree Overview
Although I first put this tree up in September (!) with the excuse that it was a "halloween tree", I was shocked when I realized yesterday there was only a week left until Christmas and I still haven't made a post about it. I set out on a mission to create this tree around Christmas last year and worked on various projects to create the ornaments and such throughout this year. I think this is a project that will never quite feel completed, and I'm likely to change up and add quite a few things next year. But for right now I can't help but feel proud when I look at the product of all my hard work and I quite like the finished tree.
I was hoping to do more in depth posts about some of the specific ornaments on the tree but given how close we are to Christmas, that might just have to wait until next year! One of the biggest projects was the cauldron base of the tree but I can't claim the genius for that idea as I followed the instructions on this post almost completely. I knew from the start than I wanted to include each of the houses in the tree so I purchased some tinsel garland in the house colors and used it to roughly section it off. My tree topper was of course the iconic sorting hat (which actually talks!) that I bought from Barnes and Noble. I wanted the overall effect to simply feel very magical and remind me of hogwarts at Christmas time.
I've also added quite a few other bits and bobs around the tree to decorate and fill out the space. I hung up my hufflepuff banner and a cinnamon broom I brought from the grocery store around Halloween time to the side.
I also added these vintage suitcases I bought at a garage sale that reminded of the ones you see in the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts movies.
There was a shelf we had already hung on the wall just beside the tree so I decided to adapt it add a bit of Potter flare. I stacked my copy of the books up on the top and included a stuffed owl I found as well some battery operated candles from the dollar store, my chocolate frog box, and a print I got in a geekgear wizardry box that I stuck in a frame from goodwill I had spray painted black. The shelf wasn't quite christmassy enough for me so I stuck up a few stockings and a Santa hat then hung a light up moon to the right.
Of course the most important part of the tree was the ornaments. Although it's a bit hard to see in this picture I made some miniature brooms out of a wooden dowel and some pine needles. There are also several handmade wand ornaments that can be seen throughout, in this picture you can see what was my attempt at a very tiny version of Hermione's wand. There are also quite a bit of potions and potion ingredients I did all around. In here you can see my "bezoars", which are really just small stones I found outside house. The tiny textbooks that are hanging around were made from a block of clay and then I attached a book cover I printed out with hot glue. I also knew from the beginning that I wanted to include the hall of portraits in some way, so I photoshopped golden frames around various past headmasters and such and then printed them all out and put it on some cardboard for stability.
Here you can see another one of my potion bottles and a small wand. I also have an easy ornament that's simply pieces of a daily prophet cut into strips and glued all over a plain ornament I found at the dollar tree. Then I used little wooden circles to hand paint on house crests to place in each of the corresponding sections.
I also created another ornament from a large plain one, painting it green and using a bit of cork to stamp on small pink circles, then attaching the honeydukes logo on the front and covering the whole thing with a glitter paint. You can also see the small hogwarts acceptance letters, which I got the idea for here. The little owl ornament I also found at the dollar tree.
Another one of the easiest ornaments to create was the small wanted posters, all I had to do was print out my pictures, glue it to a bit of cardboard, and attach a bit of fishing line to hang it.
One of my absolute favorite things on the tree is this little portrait of sleeping Dumbledore, how adorable! The potion bottles that would normally be expected to have liquid I instead filled with glitter. Because I knew it would be too expensive to buy enough of each color glitter I wanted, I instead bought a multipack of very fine different colored glitters and mixed those in with a bit of a chunkier white glitter to fill it out.
The little ornament on the bottom is done on the same wood pieces I used for my house crests that I painted to resemble hogwarts in the snow. You can just see a bit of a quill in there as well, which is simply a feather I bought in a pack from the craft store and painted the ends with some black paint to resemble ink.
I of course had to include some portraits of the house founders as well, and more potions and ingredients, like this gillyweed one that I filled with a bit of a fake plant I cut and popped in there.
I do hope that you enjoyed my tree! I put a lot of work into this but as the list of nearly a dozen more ideas for it that didn't get done clearly shows, I'm not done. As with all things it's a bit of a work in progress but I think it's quite a lovely one. Please let me know what you think and check back for more posts soon!
I was hoping to do more in depth posts about some of the specific ornaments on the tree but given how close we are to Christmas, that might just have to wait until next year! One of the biggest projects was the cauldron base of the tree but I can't claim the genius for that idea as I followed the instructions on this post almost completely. I knew from the start than I wanted to include each of the houses in the tree so I purchased some tinsel garland in the house colors and used it to roughly section it off. My tree topper was of course the iconic sorting hat (which actually talks!) that I bought from Barnes and Noble. I wanted the overall effect to simply feel very magical and remind me of hogwarts at Christmas time.
I've also added quite a few other bits and bobs around the tree to decorate and fill out the space. I hung up my hufflepuff banner and a cinnamon broom I brought from the grocery store around Halloween time to the side.
I also added these vintage suitcases I bought at a garage sale that reminded of the ones you see in the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts movies.
There was a shelf we had already hung on the wall just beside the tree so I decided to adapt it add a bit of Potter flare. I stacked my copy of the books up on the top and included a stuffed owl I found as well some battery operated candles from the dollar store, my chocolate frog box, and a print I got in a geekgear wizardry box that I stuck in a frame from goodwill I had spray painted black. The shelf wasn't quite christmassy enough for me so I stuck up a few stockings and a Santa hat then hung a light up moon to the right.
Of course the most important part of the tree was the ornaments. Although it's a bit hard to see in this picture I made some miniature brooms out of a wooden dowel and some pine needles. There are also several handmade wand ornaments that can be seen throughout, in this picture you can see what was my attempt at a very tiny version of Hermione's wand. There are also quite a bit of potions and potion ingredients I did all around. In here you can see my "bezoars", which are really just small stones I found outside house. The tiny textbooks that are hanging around were made from a block of clay and then I attached a book cover I printed out with hot glue. I also knew from the beginning that I wanted to include the hall of portraits in some way, so I photoshopped golden frames around various past headmasters and such and then printed them all out and put it on some cardboard for stability.
Here you can see another one of my potion bottles and a small wand. I also have an easy ornament that's simply pieces of a daily prophet cut into strips and glued all over a plain ornament I found at the dollar tree. Then I used little wooden circles to hand paint on house crests to place in each of the corresponding sections.
I also created another ornament from a large plain one, painting it green and using a bit of cork to stamp on small pink circles, then attaching the honeydukes logo on the front and covering the whole thing with a glitter paint. You can also see the small hogwarts acceptance letters, which I got the idea for here. The little owl ornament I also found at the dollar tree.
Another one of the easiest ornaments to create was the small wanted posters, all I had to do was print out my pictures, glue it to a bit of cardboard, and attach a bit of fishing line to hang it.
One of my absolute favorite things on the tree is this little portrait of sleeping Dumbledore, how adorable! The potion bottles that would normally be expected to have liquid I instead filled with glitter. Because I knew it would be too expensive to buy enough of each color glitter I wanted, I instead bought a multipack of very fine different colored glitters and mixed those in with a bit of a chunkier white glitter to fill it out.
The little ornament on the bottom is done on the same wood pieces I used for my house crests that I painted to resemble hogwarts in the snow. You can just see a bit of a quill in there as well, which is simply a feather I bought in a pack from the craft store and painted the ends with some black paint to resemble ink.
I of course had to include some portraits of the house founders as well, and more potions and ingredients, like this gillyweed one that I filled with a bit of a fake plant I cut and popped in there.
I do hope that you enjoyed my tree! I put a lot of work into this but as the list of nearly a dozen more ideas for it that didn't get done clearly shows, I'm not done. As with all things it's a bit of a work in progress but I think it's quite a lovely one. Please let me know what you think and check back for more posts soon!
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