Harry Potter Halloween: Charlie's Badges

These badges are a part of Charlie's Dragon Researcher's Desk (to follow).

Supplies Needed:

Clear Packing Tape

Pack of toy badges

A sheet of cardstock

Scissors

Clear tape

Total Cost: $1 and up

I bought these play badges at the Dollar Tree:

Then I found that Charlie Weasley, Ron's big brother who studies dragons in Romania, was, in his time, a Gryffindor Prefect, A Quidditch Seeker and later Captain of the Quidditch team. (He was also a member of the Order of the Phoenix.)

To represent these things on the table I decided to make these badges as if Charlie kept them with him as a memento of his Hogwarts days.

First print out these badges here on cardstock.

Then place a piece of clear packing tape over each image and cut them out. You will need to cut out the extra stuff on the Quidditch captain badge to get it to fit.

Match the images to the badges like the in the photos below.

Attach the images to the badges with a loop of clear tape or two and you're done!

In retrospect, I would have purchased the gold badges instead of the silver ones but I think they turned out nice anyways.

Enjoy!

Harry Potter Halloween: Miniature Village

Inspired by this post on Dollar Store Crafts that shows how to spray paint the Dollar Tree miniature village all one color, I went out right after Christmas and bought a bunch on sale.

Now I am finally able to use them. I wanted to pick a color that was both cheap and that could be used for Halloween and Christmas. I choose a bright navy blue. The cans of spray paint cost about a dollar at Menards or Walmart.

At first I was going to go with a simple abstract design but got so into it that it turned out rather detailed. This year's Halloween theme is Harry Potter so I decided to do a Harry Potter themed Miniature Halloween Village. I almost got everything I needed at the dollar store.

First I divided all the houses by shape. The flat roofed ones I used for Diagon Alley. The pointy roofed ones for Hogsmead. The church with the biggest steeple became Hogwarts and for Hagrid's hut. I used one of the small white ceramic houses with light.

Then I laid them out where I thought they looked best. I chose a random few to paint black for variety and painted the others blue. On the black ones, I wanted to use rubber cement and superfine black glitter to sparkle up the roofs and eaves. I kept a few unpainted for the Christmas set. I'll remove the black ones and replace them with the unpainted ones which I'll color in a more festive color like white, baby blue or bright pink.

For the base and levels I used disposable pie and baking tins inverted. I covered the large oval pan with brown fleece for Diagon Alley. For the double leveled area that Hogwarts and Hagrid's sits on, I used rubber cement to cover the sides with decorative sand. I cut moss sheets to fit the tops. The lake is a square mirror with the frame removed. I covered three sides if the mirror with a cutout of sandpaper to build the banks of the lake. Then added black electrical tape on the raw edge to prevent injury.

Hagrid's garden is a piece of mass with bits of flowers and tiny pumpkins from a craft store floral pick hot glued on.

The forbidden forest is green pine trees from the same Christmas Village set and a large fuzzy black spider from the Halloween section.

Then I just had fun adding to it with a bag of pebbles, more sandpaper cutouts, moss sheet, spanish moss, "mossy rocks", etc. (The gravestones in Godric's Hallow are from Michaels.)

I made the cobblestones of Diagon Alley with a permanent marker on a strip of sandpaper. I later replaced it with a printout of cobblestones but either will work.

The final touches were printables of the hippogriff, moon, Durmsrang ship, the Hogwarts Express and ribbon banners. I made the cutouts stand by taping cardstock triangle to the backs of the pieces. I made the cobblestones of Diagon Alley with a permanent marker on a strip of sandpaper. I later replaced it with a printout of cobblestones on cardstock and taped together. Either method will work.

I labeled it all with printed ribbon banners.

Finally I printed this map on two sheets of paper and stuck it behind the village with ticky tack.

Unfortunately I had the finished photos on a phone that died so you'll have to image how they looked painted.

I can't wait to see how I can convert it for Christmas. I already bought a sheet of white flannel "snow" that I plan to lay over these same baking tin risers.