CraftyGrant

I’ve always loved the idea of making my home more like Hogwarts, and floating candles in the Great Hall are a perfect way to create that vibe!

Materials:

1. Fake Tealights
2. Toilet Paper Rolls
3. Acrylic paints
4. Paint Brushes
5. Hot glue & glue gun
6. Fishing line

Start by dripping hot glue down the sides of your toilet paper roll. This will simulate a wax look. Next, paint the candles white or off-white.

Poke holes in the side of the tube and thread fishing line through them. Add a second set of holes right above them and thread the ends through those holes. Drop an electric tealight into the top of the ‘candle’ and the fishing line should hold it in place. Hang your enchanted candles in groups around your house and BOOM! You have yourself a lovely yet awkward conversation starter for your friends who haven’t read Harry Potter!

This week was a quick and easy craft which I’ve had in the back of my head for a long time! I wanted to make a stamp that mirrored the idea of the Marauders Map from the Harry Potter series. Just some simple footprints that can walk across any document to make it a little more exciting! This craft seriously only takes about 5 minutes to put together. Here are the materials you’ll need!

1. A wine cork
2. Sticky-back fun-foam
3. Ink
4. A precision cutting tool (x-acto knife, scissors, whatever you like best)

Draw a small footprint on the fun foam and cut it out. Leave the heel of the shoe/foot print attached and just trim a gap out of the arch of the footprint. Use the ink to make two footprints and cut them both out. Now stamp one of the two footprints you just made on the foam to make a fourth footprint. This will give you two footprints of each foot.

Peel the sticky back of your fun foam footprints off and alternate the four pieces onto your cork. Test the stamp on some paper and if anything is wrong with it, you can peel a footprint up and realign it!

I am so thrilled how these earrings turned out! In the books, Luna Lovegood wore her infamous radish earrings and in the movies they were beaded adornments. I took the opportunity to make some that were close to what she had in the films.

If you’d like to make your own, here’s some instructions!

For the first part I used fishing line since it has less flexibility than a wire. This helps to make the earrings 3D.

1. Place three clear beads onto your thread and loop the thread around again through two of those beads. Make sure it’s all centered on your fishing line.
2. Put two more beads on your line, looping the other side through them and tightening. Then 3 beads, then 5 beads.
3. Once I made those five rows, I added a sixth row of six light pink beads to give it a more blended look. Rows eight and on are all red and are in the following order: 7, 8, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 8, 8, 5, 5, 3.  The fishing line makes the beads curve out since it doesn’t like to be folded, making the earring 3D and radish-y! Once all of the beads are on the line, tie on an earring hook of your choice. I used a square knot and knotted it once more to keep it secure.
4. For the leaves, I used a piece of really thin electric wire so it would have a little more structure, though I’d suggest using a beading wire with a high gauge to it  so it will keep its shape. I made two of these leaves with the following number of beads in the rows: 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 3 and I left some tails on the end to secure them both where the hook is attached.
5. Tie the tails of the leaves to the base of the hook or on the wire attached to the hook.

Voila! Luna Lovegood beaded radish earrings!

Check out Samma and Jo and their versions of the radish earrings here!

This Flying Keys tutorial was such a simple project, and practically free to make. If you do have some old keys lying around, you can very easily make any space a little more enchanting just with some hot glue and a sharpie.

Step 1: Using wax paper and/or a silicon mat, use an iron to melt a hot glue stick flat. Allow to cool.

Step 2: Find a picture of an insect wing on your phone and place the hot glue on top of it. Trace the wing onto the hot glue with a sharpie, then cut it out. Repeat this so you have two wings.

Step 3: Make a hot glue ring around the key where you’d like the wings to be. Glue the wings to that ring. You’re done!

You can also glue a piece of fishing line to the key so it looks as though it’s flying!

Tweet me pictures of your flying keys! @GrantScovel

This is a pretty silly one here- and also entirely inadvisable. To view the eclipse you should have specific glasses that are certified safe to view the sun. In other words, this is a comedic video and not a real tutorial.

That being said, I’m still totally going to try them. All I did to make these glasses was hot glue several sunglasses lenses together around the edges. The video doesn’t show the glorious craftsmanship, so here is a photo:

And there you have it. That’s how you make an item to burn out your retinas!

I’m so excited to finally be revealing The Craft Wizards! There is still a lot of work to be done to make it everything I want it to be, but for now it’s a perfect way to get everything started. My biggest goal for this website is to write more in-depth tutorials for each of the Crafting With Cocktails videos I make to make everything easier to follow and more accessible in general. As such, I will be spending a lot of time writing out instructions for some of the CWC archives other the coming weeks, so I’d love some input from you as to which ones I should start on!

Additionally, I’ve launched a Patreon account for additional ways to support Crafting With Cocktails and This very site! There are perks available for those who donate, including additional content, prints, custom craft boxes and patron-only google hangouts! I spend countless hours making content and would love to increase the sorts of things I do, which is why I’d love your help. Even if you can’t donate, sharing my Patreon with others will help a lot too!

 

This week’s craft is an Apothecary shelf themed around Harry Potter Potions Class! In the past year and a half I’ve acquired a number of essential oils, so I needed a place to hold them. I had created a separator for a small box, but it was inefficient and didn’t quite hold everything. After searching for another option, I thought it was time to just make something fun that would fit with my space and deco- and of course, make it Potions themed given the use! The lovely thing about this is the ability to make it into a tiny bar shelf- in fact, I may make another one incorporating a flask and shaker for the kitchen.

I think the video speaks for itself in that it shows how to make the piece pretty easily, though please leave a comment if you have any additional questions regarding this project!

 

I’ve had the same pin board since I was in middle or high school and thought it was time for a little facelift. I have quite a few strange little projects planned like this, so it was a great way to start everything off. I’m particularly fond of the black frame with the little stars all over it, since I’ve already used that motif in a few other pieces around my house (including next week’s crafting project!)

Since this craft project is pretty straightforward, I’ve opted to not create an illustrated description of the project. I really like how the illustrated descriptions have turned out, and I hope that you find them informative and fun as you find them in other posts on this site!

I filmed this episode of Crafting With Cocktails over a year ago with my friend Ross. Ross and I used to make bizarre little videos in high school including my first experiences using green screen. Make sure you check out Ross’s YouTube channel at Dragoon Films where he actually filmed an interview with me about CWC and my YouTube Channel!

Here’s how you make your own steering wheel cover:

A new Crafting With Cocktails is out today! We made some fancy bracelets out of straws by melting them down. I had a great time with Lauren making all of these happen (and we made them just before Denver Pride, so the rainbows were rather appropriate).