DIY Harry Potter Christmas Tree Skirt

Guess what! The Official Harry Potter Facebook page is holding a mini competition.

"Have you decorated the tree with special Harry Potter ornaments? Are you a witch or wizard when it comes to holiday magic? Submit a video tutorial of your decorating tips for a chance to feature on the Wizarding World YT page."

Yes. Yes. I'm in.
I had the best time decorating our apartment in my Harry Potter theme. So when my cousin (thank you Kate!) tagged me in this promotional post from Harry Potter on Facebook, I had to do it. Let the planning start ASAP.

I called my friend Ben Mahoney, who owns a production house, The BMP Film Co., and asked him if he could help me out. He sent his fabulous employee, Jon Goldberg, over to my house within three days, and together Jon and I shot my first DIY video. Jon rearranged my apartment to make the perfect set. Then, he taped me over and over doing this DIY, getting the greatest shots of the tutorial! He put the bow on top with such a great job editing it. I'm beyond thankful that these guys jumped on the opportunity to help me make this video. THANK YOU Ben & Jon!

I couldn't be more thrilled that my first DIY video is a Harry Potter crafting project. A combination of two of my favorite things, together in one video! Even if my video doesn't get chosen to appear on the Harry Potter YouTube page, I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to make one and even submit it. Such a wonderful experience.

Making this video has inspired me to make more DIY tutorials and videos that I will feature on my blog and my *new YouTube page! So stay tuned in the future for more!

Harry Potter Ornaments

In order to make our Harry Potter Christmas tree perfect, a lot of DIY ornaments had to be created. This was a fun exercise to think about visual cues from the movies and books that could be re-created into ornaments to embellish our tree!

From Harry's Hogwarts letter...

to small versions of the Daily Prophets, there were a ton of fun ideas that we explored.

We even went way back to the first book, when Harry, Ron and Hermione ran into the Flying Keys obstacle when trying to find the Sorcerers Stone. I was able to find a collection of antique-styled keys in all different shapes. Then to create the idea of wings, I simply tied glittered gold string in a bow around them. Simple! Alohomora!

I also bought plain red ornaments to draw Harry Potter icons of the stories on.
HP, ⚯͛, the lightning scar, and the deathly hallows were all perfect visuals to help make our tree come to life!

Mark was an awesome sport through all this DIY-ing. Always listening to my new ideas, and going to Michaels and Joanns with me to get all the supplies I needed to create them. One day while we were at Michaels, Mark found these mini corked glass bottles. He grabbed them and said "these would be cool for the viles that hold memories for when you want to watch them in the pensieve."

It was a fab idea, and I was so excited that Mark came up with it! So we grabbed the supplies we needed, and went home to make them. They turned out to be adorable. 

This experience of our first Christmas together has been such a blessing. We are creating such wonderful memories that we are now able to store away in a vile and keep forever - no pensieve required!

Harry Potter Christmas Tree Skirt

Where there is a Christmas tree, there is a Christmas tree skirt. 

I knew as soon as we got a tree that this would be a great opportunity for me to make my first tree skirt that works perfectly with our Harry Potter Christmas theme. I sketched for a couple days different themes that could inspire this tree skirt.

Could the tree skirt represent the four Hogwarts houses?
Should I draw the Marauders Map on it? (immediately knew that was quite a feat)
Should I embellish it with the seven horcuxes?

After a while I took a break and looked up some Harry Potter quotes for inspiration. I landed on the most perfect quote from J.K. Rowling, and I knew this was it!

"It is important to remember that we all have magic inside us."
 - J.K. Rowling

Christmas is the most magical time of the year. From everyone being in the most wonderful spirit, to the beautiful lights, and the overwhelming love of family, it is the best time of year. The magic of Santa Claus brought my family such joy for years. Even today, his spirit lives when we wake up on Christmas to find gifts for all of us from Santa.

That is why I knew this quote was perfect for my tree skirt. Bringing the magic of Christmas together with the magic of Harry Potter was the perfect metaphor.

Once I figured out the quote, I got to work! The supplies needed for this DIY project are very simple. I purchased a round table cloth from Bed Bath and Beyond (about $12), and 6 black fabric markers from Michaels (about $3 each). Then, I printed out the quote in the Harry Potter font, and created templates with each letter. Next, I traced each letter with a pencil to make sure the spacing of the quote was perfect on the round tree skirt. 

From there, I went to filling in each letter with the black fabric pens. Not going to lie, this project took me ten hours to create. It was laborious! But thank goodness for the first four Harry Potter movies. I watched those while creating this to keep me going! 

Even though it took forever, I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.
It turned out to be so beautiful, and the perfect sentiment to keep in mind this Christmas season :)

Harry Potter Inspired Wreath

This past week, I unfortunately came down with the flu which knocked me on my butt for days. As most people know, I can't sit still and do nothing, so being sick is very difficult for me. I always need to be doing something creative! Naturally, I started thinking about Christmas, and decided to come up with a theme for Mark and my first Christmas together in our apartment. Off to Pinterest I went.

One of the first things Mark and I bonded over when we started dating was Harry Potter. We both love the books, and have read them many times (I'm currently re-reading them now - my mom is really trying to urge me to expand my reading material). So this year, I decided to decorate our apartment as a Harry Potter Christmas!

I have brainstormed many crafty projects that will help me complete my theme, so I will be blogging about them so all of you can see how our apartment comes together
This first project is a Harry Potter Inspired Wreath!

Right now, Michael's and Jo-Ann Fabrics are having insane Christmas sales. Practically all of their Christmas decor and crafts are 50-70% off. I was able to get (almost) everything that I need for my projects from these two stores, at a fantastic price. That being said... I kind of splurged a little. Days like this, I feel exactly like my mama. Mark cracked up when I got home with all my bags of decorations. It reminded me so much of my dad's reaction when my mom comes home with bags full of craft supplies! I love it.

I wanted to keep my Harry Potter Inspired Wreath simple, and not TOO Hogwarts. I decided to bring in visual cues from the books such as owl post and snitches into the wreath to give it that magical feel. (Stay tuned, a future post will be a how-to make Snitch Ornaments!)

What I used:
 - Fake wreath (save it as decoration for next year!)
 - Gold glittered pine cones (you can buy them with glitter on them already, or you can glue glitter on them yourselves)
 - An array of small gold, bronze, and glitter ornaments
 - An assortment of Christmas filigree (white pieces seen above)
 - Red and white string
 - White paper
 - White feathers
 - Hot glue gun

For this wreath, I created little snitches using small gold ornaments, and hot glueing feathers to the sides to create the snitches wings. I also created small owl posts using paper tied with red and white string. Nothing too complicated, but they really gave me the Harry Potter inspiration I was looking for!

The fun thing about creating a wreath is that there is no correct way to do it. I have found that the best way to design a wreath is trial and error, and moving all your craft pieces and parts around on the wreath until you find the perfect spots for all the elements to work together as a group. I would recommend that before you glue anything down, find where you want to place all your pieces, take a picture of the final project, and THEN glue it down.

I am so excited with our the wreath turned out! I immediately hung it up in our apartment. One Harry Potter project down, many to go. I can't wait to see how all this comes together!
Stay tuned for more projects coming soon!

*Just like any of my Kellembell or craft posts, if you see anything that you are interested in purchasing, please don't hesitate to email me at kellykurkjian@gmail.com*