Harry Potter Party: Wand Boxes

In keeping with the wand-shop style of presentation during her Harry Potter party, Emily made some boxes for her wands.

Her specifications were particular: they had to be black, they had to be narrow and flat, and they had to have lids and be lined with some kind of velvety fabric.

We experimented not just with sizes but also the methods of making these boxes, bearing in mind that they had to be simple to construct, including the cutting-out, as we would be mass-producing over a dozen of them (which, if you consider that a lid was like a second box, would mean over two dozen in total.) 

This was the simplest and most efficient version of the flat template, before folding. In theory, it could be sized to fit within a single letter-size or A4 sheet of cardstock, but Emily's wands, with their beaded pommels, were too long for a box made from a letter-size sheet, so we traced ours in multiples on black poster board to accommodate their longer lengths.

Because scoring, folding and gluing 30 boxes soon became unexciting, Emily extended the process over a leisurely few days.

Here is a box and lid. The lid is the same width as the box but slightly longer, so that it would fit just right without either loosely falling off or squishing the box underneath.

Emily then measured and cut rectangles of red velour and glued them to the inside of the box.

Next, she matched the wands with their labels, and set them in the boxes

Then she hand-drew fancy random numbers on paper rectangles and glued them onto the ends.

Very fancy numbering, I must add. I was very impressed.

Finally, she improvised an organizational display using our old cardboard greengrocer cubbies. Incidentally, we've tried to throw away this greengrocer shop countless times, with limited success. The kids were eventually persuaded to let go of the shop front, being an utter space-hogger in their playroom, but they begged to save the cubbies. I am so glad we did, because they have used these cubbies for so many scenarios in their pretend play. 

Here are the shelves of Ollivander's wand shop. It almost looks like we should have made a hundred wand boxes and not just fifteen.

The sign was an internet image capture, I believe, which Emily traced over with a black pen to create this effect.

You'll probably be able to hack our wand box just by looking at the flat template in the third photo, and size it to your own needs. However, if you'd prefer to use ours, we will make it available in the downloadable file at the end of all the posts. We sized that to fit a single letter-size paper so it will hold wands up to 9" long, and included photo instructions and folding lines.

If working with cardstock isn't your thing, here is a faster alternative: a wand sheath (or pocket) in felt. We used felt because it was thick and no-fray, but feel free to use any other fabric, finishing the edges and interfacing for stability as you need to. 

Emily first made these for last summer's craft fair, at which she sold her first batch of wands, and you can find the original tutorial in that post here. I am also reposting those photos here for your convenience. The actual dimensions of the felt piece used depends on the length and thickness of your wand. 

Cut a long strip of felt, roughly twice the length of the wand. The width of the felt should be sufficient to create a pocket for your wand that's not too loose so the wand does not slip out on its own. Start with 1.25" or 1.5", and adjust it for more slender (less embellished) or thicker (more embellished) wands.

Fold in half and serge both sides together, sealing the edges in the process.

We didn't fold ours exactly end-to-end; we left the front layer shorter than the back layer 

so the wand could peek out at the top of the sheath.

Took literally minutes to make!

We have just one more post and then we'll wrap up this party series and share the downloadable template file!