Magic Wands

My Son(s) have one of those "Wizardology" books that has fun open the envelope and take out the secret things on each page.  One part says how to make a wand, cut a stick and carve it etc.  My son mentioned it allllll weekend.  Now I don't know if you have been around here lately but we are short on substantial sized sticks and I'm not so sure I trust Age8 with a carving knife yet.    But I saw a super fun other idea for making wands just the last week and So I promised him we could do those.   I found the instructions on Instructables and they were very simple to make.  I should have gone back to look instead of going from memory but they still turned out alright. 

First you take a sheet of regular ol' paper and roll it from corner to corner, or at least in that direction in a manner that makes one end fatter then the other, placing a piece of double stick tape diagonally on the paper about 2/3 of the way to the end.  I did this part because my son thought it was hard to get the paper to go the right way and tight enough.  (not super tight)

Then you are supposed to put elmer's glue on the remaining part and finish rolling up.  This is the part I missed, I put another small piece of tape on the end instead and I think that worked well too but the glue probably would have been better and made it slightly sturdier.

Cut off each end so they are even then make a dot of hot glue in each end to seal and add to the shape/illusion.  Use the Hot glue to decorate the stick as you want.  It was hard to keep an even flow coming out for me so some spots are more bump-line-bump-line-etc.  We then painted a base color and let dry, then painted accents.  By this time Age11 was home from space camp and so mine  became hers and she finished painting the brown one while Age8 painted the silver.  When they were done I sprayed them both with a finish spray so the regular paint wouldn't rub off on their hands.  Fyi, the silver was spray paint and the brown  and gold were acrylic.

If we do this again I would change the following for me.  Insert another rolled up paper that is tighter on the inside to help it be sturdier.  Really it was pretty sturdy except at the smaller end where there wasn't any glue to reinforce it.  Also I would do the Elmer's glue at the end instead of another strip of tape but the benefit was we didn't have to let any glue dry before we went to the next step.  It was good to have the helper so that he could hold the wands upright while the hot glue ends were cooling.  I did roll up a wad of paper towel in each end just to catch the glue so to speak so it didn't drip all down the tube and was a good base for the hot glue.

I don't think Age8 put his down for 5 days and would have slept with it had he not know it would crush.  They spent the day casting spells and whatnot.  After a few days the silver one got slightly crushed on the end from too much touching/poking stuff instead of just pointing. But you don't notice right off. Plus that way if a kid gets a little rambunctious the wand will crumple before anyone gets hurt.  And when it truly dies then I know it's easily replaceable if he isn't over that already.

Coincidentally I noticed while posting that Age15 is in the background watching Merlin. (probably only because it says Merlin did I notice what show it was) Quite the wizardly day at our house.