December 16th - Smoky Cauldrons

This is also a very quick Harry Potter themed Christmas Ornament for my daughter's Harry Potter Christmas Tree Advent Calendar. I went on Amazon this time, and from their selection of Halloween party favors I bought a dozen of these inexpensive miniature Witch's Cauldrons, made from black plastic.

(Please note that links may expire with time, and I will not update or fix them. In that case please do your own Google search.)

While you could just hang these cauldrons on the Christmas tree the way they are, I think that would be very boring. Very boring indeed! So I started thinking about how to make them a little more wizardy. While googling for fake smoke I came across this brilliant idea, originally on how to make fake explotions, from the world of gaming table role play. From eBay, I got some LED battery operated flickering tea candles. They come in many different colours, and I believe both blue, green and purple would give a super cool effect.

But I opted for cold white ones (they can of course be painted any colour with transparent paint), the little more expensive ones with a timer and cycle. Inspired by the tutorial above, I used my tea lights, some double sided tape and polyester fibre stuffing from eBay to make some pretty cool cauldrons fuming and boliling with dangerous potions! (I put some light styrofoam pieces under my candles to bring the flickering flame a bit higher up and make it more visible through the "smoke".)

Now doesn't that look cool for a Harry Potter themed Christmas Tree Ornament?!