With Harry Potter being the youngest Quidditch seeker in a century and all, of course my daughter's Harry Potter themed Christmas Tree needs Broomstick ornaments! After extensive searching, though, I'd unfortunately found no finished product for purchase that I wanted to use. Luckily, this is an ornament that's not too difficult to make from scratch. Even so, I must say that I procrastinated for quite some time before I started, as this was one of the last ornament projects I finished.
I found this tutorial over at my favourite EPBOT crafters, and used it as inspiration for my purchases of materials and how to make my own Broomstick Ornaments. But I wanted to make it look more like an actual Nimbus or Firebolt, and finding 8 matching twigs with the exact shape for the handle wasn't something I was going to spend time on.
I looked around a bit and saw that several others had made the broomstick handle from clay, which seemed like a pretty darn good idea to me. So I bought some brown soft Fimo clay, thereby also eliminating the need for the power tools used in the tutorial I mentioned.
Unsure of just how strong Fimo clay is, I decided to enforce my ornaments by first shaping a piece of metal wire in the desired form of the handle. You can see two of the broomstick handle-shaped pieces of wire in the picture to the right. I looked at photos of Firebolts on Google Images to get my handles to look the way I wanted them, just remember to make the hind section long enough to glue on the twigs later. I then shaped the actual Fimo clay around the wire.
Before baking, I made the hole for the wire that later will make the foot rest, see the photo on the left. I actually made a practise broom first, where I also put in an eyelet screw for hanging the ornament later. But it turned out to be impossible to tell where that screw needs to go before you've attached the twigs, foot rests and metal bands.
After baking the first one at 110 degrees Celsius for about 30-40 minutes, I discovered that the clay doesn't get completely hard. It's actually still a bit flexible, which makes it possible to screw in that eyelet screw when the rest of the ornament is finished and you can balance it to tell exactly where that eyelet needs to be.
Because I started this project off season, there weren't a lot of spriggy Christmas wreaths around for purchase. But I solved that problem easily by getting a good old piassava sweeping broom, with lots and lots of piassava fibres perfect for broom bristles, for almost no money. I opted to insert the foot rest wire first, and then glued the bristles to the handle with my glue gun. After making that practise broom I discovered that it would be a good idea to glue some twigs to the end of the broom shaft first, to make the sweeping end fuller and nicer. Hopefully you can see what I mean in this picture.
After adding enough twigs I shaped them with pliers. Finally I added metallic tape a few loops around the upper part of the bristles and bent the foot rest wire to the desired shape. Not until now could I balance the broom and decide where to put the eyelet screw for hanging the ornament. I screwed it a bit in first, then took it out and cut off the length quie a bit before screwing it back in, or it would have been too long.
Even if I'd tried my best to balance the ornament first, I still had to add some more twigs to some of the brooms to make the balance perfect, so I wouldn't have to move the eyelet screws. Some nice golden ornament hooks (or some nearly invisible fishing line, if you want it to look as if the brooms are floating in the air), and there you go. Although it took a while, it wasn't as difficult as I'd dreaded to make these ornaments, and I'm really happy with how they turned out!
I found this tutorial over at my favourite EPBOT crafters, and used it as inspiration for my purchases of materials and how to make my own Broomstick Ornaments. But I wanted to make it look more like an actual Nimbus or Firebolt, and finding 8 matching twigs with the exact shape for the handle wasn't something I was going to spend time on.
I looked around a bit and saw that several others had made the broomstick handle from clay, which seemed like a pretty darn good idea to me. So I bought some brown soft Fimo clay, thereby also eliminating the need for the power tools used in the tutorial I mentioned.Unsure of just how strong Fimo clay is, I decided to enforce my ornaments by first shaping a piece of metal wire in the desired form of the handle. You can see two of the broomstick handle-shaped pieces of wire in the picture to the right. I looked at photos of Firebolts on Google Images to get my handles to look the way I wanted them, just remember to make the hind section long enough to glue on the twigs later. I then shaped the actual Fimo clay around the wire.
Before baking, I made the hole for the wire that later will make the foot rest, see the photo on the left. I actually made a practise broom first, where I also put in an eyelet screw for hanging the ornament later. But it turned out to be impossible to tell where that screw needs to go before you've attached the twigs, foot rests and metal bands.After baking the first one at 110 degrees Celsius for about 30-40 minutes, I discovered that the clay doesn't get completely hard. It's actually still a bit flexible, which makes it possible to screw in that eyelet screw when the rest of the ornament is finished and you can balance it to tell exactly where that eyelet needs to be.
Because I started this project off season, there weren't a lot of spriggy Christmas wreaths around for purchase. But I solved that problem easily by getting a good old piassava sweeping broom, with lots and lots of piassava fibres perfect for broom bristles, for almost no money. I opted to insert the foot rest wire first, and then glued the bristles to the handle with my glue gun. After making that practise broom I discovered that it would be a good idea to glue some twigs to the end of the broom shaft first, to make the sweeping end fuller and nicer. Hopefully you can see what I mean in this picture.
After adding enough twigs I shaped them with pliers. Finally I added metallic tape a few loops around the upper part of the bristles and bent the foot rest wire to the desired shape. Not until now could I balance the broom and decide where to put the eyelet screw for hanging the ornament. I screwed it a bit in first, then took it out and cut off the length quie a bit before screwing it back in, or it would have been too long.
Even if I'd tried my best to balance the ornament first, I still had to add some more twigs to some of the brooms to make the balance perfect, so I wouldn't have to move the eyelet screws. Some nice golden ornament hooks (or some nearly invisible fishing line, if you want it to look as if the brooms are floating in the air), and there you go. Although it took a while, it wasn't as difficult as I'd dreaded to make these ornaments, and I'm really happy with how they turned out!
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