Harry Potter Christmas Tree

For the last few months I have been sharing Harry Potter ornament crafts. Today,  I am happy to reveal my Harry Potter Christmas tree!

Hedwig sits perched at the top while the tree is filled with all things Harry.

I chose a Gryffindor color scheme with scarlet (burgundy) and gold.

Here are some of the decorations I used.  I began by running a solid burgundy ribbon from the top to the bottom of the tree.  Gold and burgundy cording runs throughout as a filler.  The gold and burgundy wired ribbon was tied into small bows with three loops on each side and placed in the tree.  I found these great white deer that I got to represent Harry’s patronus.  Large plastic balls help as fillers.  I bought the balls at a yard sale at a great price.  They were originally black and I simply spray painted them to match the tree.

The next set of ornaments includes black glasses that came from the party section of Hobby Lobby.  I think they were 6 for $3.99 without a coupon.  The black witches hats were on the discount rack after Halloween last year.  I picked up the white owls at Hobby Lobby last year.  To add a little variation, I also purchased two other owls.  The black owl is so fluffly you can hardly tell what it is.  I will probably buy a few more owls to use as fillers.  There are three bird cages.  The larger ones were blue when I purchased them and I spray painted them a gold-bronze color.  I shared how I made the wanted posters here in my Wanted Poster Tutorial and used the wanted posters all around the tree to fill in larger spaces.  The Deathly Hallows Ornaments were also handmade.

I also shared the Flying Key Ornament Tutorial.  Above is a close up view of how the ornaments came together on the tree.

You may can see from this photo that I also added potion bottles.  Mary made these and they were definitely a labor of love.  We tried making these bottles using various tutorials on Pinterest only to have our liquid dry up.  We think we’ve found the best way to make the potion bottles and will share our super simple way to make these this week.  As a sneak peek, here’s one photo:

I also wanted to show you how I dressed up the bottom of the tree.

I am still debating making a Harry Potter tree skirt.  For now, I simply bought a packaged drop cloth from the hardware store and made it into a tree skirt.  You actually can’t even see it once I placed a few Harry-ish decorations around.The Sorting Hat came from Barnes and Noble.  (I bought it last year and had planned to make it my tree topper.  When I put it on the tree, it seemed to darken the entire tree and I just didn’t like the way it looked.) Sitting on the trunk behind the hat are Halloween leftovers…the spell books and crystal ball came from my Halloween decor.  A broom from my Halloween decorations is leaning against the wall.  There’s also a potions bottle that Mary made last year that didn’t turn out exactly the way we wanted it but was still too cute not to use. A time turner and wand are also sitting on the trunk.

Under the tree are several packages made with paper bags and tied with twine (sing, “brown paper packages tied up with string…”).  A brass urn that I had stored in the basement looked similar to the Goblet of Fire so I sat in under the tree and put a small strand of battery operated red LED lights in it for effect.  In front of the urn is a small bottle of floo powder. The monster book was really a last-minute idea so it’s not perfect or permanent.  It’s pretty much taped up with scotch tape and the teeth will probably fall out if you pick it up…but it looks pretty good sitting under the tree.

I still have so many more projects that I’d like to do for the Harry Potter Christmas tree, but this is my 2018 version.  I hope to continue making more ornaments and will share them with you as I do. It has really been so much fun creating the Harry Potter tree and making the decorations.

For now, Merry Christmas to all of you muggles out there!