These DIY Harry Potter wands are easy to make and require only a few basic craft materials! Tutorial with photos so that you can make your own wizard wands.
Some links on this site are affiliate links and I may earn a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you! Learn more.
My eleven-year-old daughter Emma LOVES the Harry Potter series. Her cousins showed her the basic DIY Harry Potter wand making techniques a couple years ago. She now has probably made 100 wands by now, tweaking her materials and techniques for a product that she likes. I’m sharing her wand making tutorial here today.
Tutorial: Make A DIY Harry Potter Wand
What You'll Find on This Page
DIY Harry Potter Wand Making Materials
- Sticks that you gather in your yard, neighborhood, or park. Emma is the only Harry Potter wand maker I know who uses proper sticks. She’s tried the other popular materials – chopsticks, dowels, and pencils – but she always returns to sticks. Sticks are harder to work with, but their unpredictability also makes for truly magical wands!
- Low temp hot glue gun. Wand making requires a lot of hot gluing. You can still get burned with a low temperature glue gun, but it won’t be nearly as bad as a high temp gun. Make sure to teach proper hot glue gun techniques before allowing children to do this, and ALWAYS supervise. Emma’s top tip is to make sure you hot glue over a surface to make sure that any glue that drips falls on something that it is okay for the glue to fall on.
- Pony beads for adding interesting shapes to your wands. Emma got the idea of adding beads from this wonderful tutorial on turning chopsticks into wands.
- Paint. We recommend this metallic paint from Sargent Art. It is a water-based non-toxic paint, so great for kids to use. We put it in these paint cups to make it easy to paint for a while, take a break, and then paint again with minimal waste and mess. Disclosure: I requested these paints and paint cups from Sargent Art and was sent them for free to use in a project on my blog.
Ignore the glitter. Emma had it out, but decided not to use it.
How to Make a DIY Harry Potter Wand
Step 1: Use hot glue and beads to create structure
You may notice that we use a lot less hot glue than other tutorials. This is because the sticks themselves come with enough irregularities that you don’t have to add that much extra.
Step 2: Once the glue has set, paint your wands!
I recommend 2-3 coats of paint, although Emma has been known to stop at a single coat. Bits of the wooden wand tend to show through then, but that can be a neat effect on its own.
Emma made wands for all thirty people who came to her Harry Potter birthday party! This was a lot of work, but she had some help with the painting!
I’m guessing Anna decided to conduct quality control here…
More Harry Potter Crafts to Enjoy
Try these fun DIY Harry Potter activites when you’re done making wands!
- Harry Potter Themed Weighted Blankets
- DIY Harry Potter Monster Book of Monsters
- Wizard Snowmen (with printable to make your own!)
- Harry Potter Costumes for the Entire Family
Have you ever made a DIY Harry Potter wand? What are your favorite techniques? Share your tips in the comments below, or on my Facebook page. You can also tag me on Instagram.
MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
My technique is pretty simple just take a wooden dowel (or stick, chopstick, paper rolled up really tight and taped, etc.) then take your hot glue gun and make a handle and some designs on your dowel. Then paint. And for more advanced crafters or people who are obsessed with whittling, here is another technique, take a stick, whittle a kind of pointed but rounded tip and take all of the bark off. Then take a hot glue gun and make a handle, or if you want a more realistic handle glue on bark.
Thanks for sharing!
Love the metallic paint on these.
That metallic paint is fantastic!
Her wands are awesome!!
I love that you used real sticks! That’s a fun change to it.
It makes for some really neat shapes!
This is a HUGE party! Way to go, Emma!