Potion Bottle Ornaments

These potion bottle ornaments are super easy to make and look fantastic on a tree.

Supplies

small glass bottles 

glitter

Elmer's glue

small paint brush or Q-tip

hot glue gun or super glue

wire or ribbon

First things first, I would recommend setting out an old newspaper or scrap paper to work on. This way any glitter that does not fall into the bottles will be easier to clean up. Now, some tutorials will use glycerin or germ-x in addition with the glitter to make it appear as though the bottle is full of a potion.  I did not follow this route because I was afraid of the bottles potentially breaking and then some liquid is spilled everywhere on my other ornaments ruining them. Instead, I painted a light coat of Elmer's glue on the inside of each bottle to make the glitter stick.

Then, I carefully poured a small amount of the glitter into the bottle using a funnel and swirled it around until the sides were completely covered.  The funnel came with the glitter set I bought from Hobby Lobby. You could easily make one with paper so that the glitter falls into the bottle and not all over your workspace.  Next, I lined the bottom of each cork stopper with a little hot glue and placed the cork into the bottle.

Now, the labels were the trickiest part for me because I wanted them to look as though they were actually from the Potions cupboard at Hogwarts. There are several labels you can scale down and print out if you simply search for "potion labels" on your favorite search engine website. Or, you can download my copy of the labels I made here. 

After cutting out each of the labels, simply paint a light coat of Elmer's glue on the back of each label and gently place it onto the bottle. Try not to smear the label once applied otherwise you may have glue all over the outside of your bottle. Once, the labels are dry you can use wire or ribbon to as a hanger for the ornament.  I chose to use wire as I thought it went better with the theme I was using, plus I hate using ribbon since it likes to not stay in place. 

And there you hopefully have it. Potion bottle ornaments perfect for a magical Christmas tree. 

Our First Christmas

Our first Christmas together is Harry Potter themed and, of course, I was extremely excited to make several ornaments. After scouring Pinterest and devoting an entire board to the different ideas I had found, I set a budget of $50 for myself. I decided to make potion bottles, the Golden Snitch, the key with the bent wing, and Ron's howler from Mrs. Weasley.

Our Little Christmas Tree

Now, the $50 budget included buying the Christmas tree and all of the supplies for decorations. I found this little Christmas tree at Wal-Mart for $20 plus tax. I thought since we are most likely to be in a small house or apartment for the next couple of years that this tree would work perfectly. So this leaves me with just about $30 to buy supplies for decorations.I waited for Hobby Lobby's Christmas supplies to go on sale for half off and then I bought my supplies. 

There's this cute brand of tiny ornaments that I found called A Tree For Me that had these little red and blue ornaments I thought would be perfect to reflect our Hogwarts houses Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. The tinsel was from my Christmas tree I had last year that I bought at Wal-Mart for a $1.

I also bought small glass bottles and glitter to make the potion bottles.  In order to make the winged key and the snitch, I bought a key from the jewelry section and some wings made by the same brand as the red and blue ornaments. 

The Howler I made was based off this Howler I found here. I thought it was interesting to have the Howler floating inside the ornament since in the movie the Howler floats as well. I bought a plastic snap-together ornament to make this decoration. 

"How dare you steal that car!"

I was in Hobby Lobby long enough for Creed to text me asking if I was lost in the store. After I had gathered everything for my Harry Potter Christmas, I only ended up spending about $25 which leaves me $5 to buy a First Christmas ornament for us. I'm quite proud of myself for staying within budget. Hopefully, I'll have time after finals to post the tutorials for some of the ornaments I made.

Have a magical holiday everyone!